PREFACE. IX 



Grace as a student. His son still possesses, in an old parch- 

 ment-covered memorandum book, the following record in 

 Hentz's then boyish hand-writing, " le vendredi 22 octobre 

 1813, j'ai 6t4 au Val-de-Grace, M. Hentz. " There he re- 

 mained, busied with his studies and duties as hospital assist- 

 ant, until the fall of Napoleon, when his father was proscribed 

 and obliged to flee to America, whither Nicholas and one of his 

 brothers accompanied their parents. 



The party sailed from Havre-de-Grace, in the bark " Eu- 

 gene," Jan. 22, 1816, and arrived in New York City on March 

 19. Here and in Elizabeth Town they spent a few weeks in 

 collecting their personal effects and making arrangements to 

 move into the interior, an undertaking which was then quite 

 formidable. They arrived in Wilkesburg, Pennsylvania, in the 

 latter part of April, where it is probable that Hentz's parents 

 finally settled. 



Hentz himself for several succeeding years lived in Boston 

 and Philadelphia, where he taught French and miniature paint- 

 ing. He also passed a short time on Sullivan's Island, near 

 Charleston, S. C, as tutor in the family of a wealthy planter, a 

 Mr. Marshall. All this time, whenever leisure hours allowed 

 it, he was engaged in entomological studies, directing his spec- 

 ial attention, as has already been said, to the spiders. While in 

 Philadelphia he became intimate with the naturalist, Le Sueur. 

 Le Sueur was accustomed to etch his own drawings, and having 

 the use of his press, etc., Hentz made etchings of some of his 

 spiders, as well as of an alligator, which he had dissected to 

 study the nature of its circulation. 



In the winter of 1820-21, he attended a course of medical 

 lectures in Harvard University, but finally abandoned the study 



