204 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



66 to 74 and 130 to 140. The story of the poor boy with his love of 

 nature — of how he became interested in the flies and how his origi- 

 nal attempt at classification led to his broadening of the characters 

 used to differentiate genera — of how he first attracted the attention 

 of Laccpede and of how he secured through him his first magnifiers — 

 then of how Illinger met him and helped him to publish his first 

 paper — and then the visit of Fabricius, who came from Paris to Stol- 

 berg to see him — the whole story is fascinating. He was poor all his 

 life, but happy in his work. W^hen he was 76 years old he was given 

 a pensioij of 200 thalers a year by the Crown Prince of Prussia, and 

 on his 83rd birthday the University of Bonn gave him a doctorate. 

 His was a good, productive, and useful life, and in his devotion to 

 his work he was typical of probably most of the entomologists of his 

 day who have left notable publications. 



Another case was that of Pierre Andre Latreille, one of the great- 

 est systematists in entomology. He was born in 1762, and was such 

 a modest man, so absorbed in his work and so indifferent to other 

 matters that he remained for 30 consecutive years attached to the 

 Museum of Natural History in Paris in an inferior position in spite 

 of his extraordinary merit. This is a wonderful contrast to the 

 younger men of the present age who expect to reach first rank very 

 speedily. A writer in Miscellania Entomologica twenty-odd years ago 

 says of his work (translated) : " He explored it (entomology) as a 

 connoisseur, studied like a Benedictine monk, and described as a poet 

 the interesting world of insects which he classified." Latreille's pecuni- 

 ary reward came only w^ien he reached the age of 65, and in 1827 he 

 was given one of the two chairs of the Institute. He enjoyed this 

 advanced position for only six years, and died in 1833. 



In the old days, just as in recent days, the collecting and study of 

 insects attracted people of the most diverse occupations and social 

 standing. I have just told the story of Meigen who, beginning as a 

 poor boy, died as a poor man, unconsidered by the rank and file of his 

 contemporaries, but who nevertheless worked out things and published 

 them that are today considered of high value and that must be con- 

 sulted often. And with Latreille we have shown much the same 

 thing. In fact, nearly all entomologists have been poor men — very 

 many of them, possibly, poor because they were so vitally interested m 

 entomology. But there have been some wealthy men of high position 

 who have been attracted to this study, some as dilettante collectors, 

 and others as ardent and intelligent workers. And this held for the 

 old days just as it does for recent days. 



