LEPIDOPTEROLOGY. 203 



depressing change, which we have all suffered from in some degree. 

 On July 25th, the Colonel of the 144th Infantry Regiment, =■' who had 

 been making excursions and ascents with M. Henri Oberthiir, had 

 started for an ascent of Mount Perdu, and guides were hurried after 

 him as a despatch recalled him urgently to his regiment at Bordeaux. 

 This was disquieting, and on the 28th M. Oberthur thought it wise to 

 make for home. Arriving there on the 31st (by automobile) there 

 seemed still a chance for peace. 



There follows a short resume of the facts of the events up to the 

 war. He adds that it is not his business to become, in an Entomo- 

 logical work, the historian of the most bloody and terrible war there 

 has ever been. Yet one remembers at a quite recent meeting of an 

 Entomological Societj', a most interesting and vivid letter from the 

 front was read, bearing on the experiences and exertions of members 

 of the Society, and unfortunately on the loss of some of them, but no 

 one seemed to regard the time spent in listening to the letter as other- 

 wise than properly and appropriately employed. M. Oberthiir's three 

 sons and a grandson are engaged actively in the war. His grandson, 

 aged 18, has voluntarily joined the 102nd regiment of the Infantry. 



Referring to the brutality of the Germans, he adds : — 



" In such unhappy times, when all families are constantly 

 receiving the saddest news — -telling of the death, glorious, no doubt, 

 but so grievous, of some relative or friend, whom we held amongst 

 our dearest and most loved — one feels that all scientific labour 

 becomes impossible, and that the publication of any work begun in 

 more propitious circumstances must be postponed sine die. 



" Hence the date, ' September, 1914,' printed in May, 1914, has 

 since elapsed. Yet the volume X. was nearly finished. 



" I decide, therefore to publish the volume, so far as it goes, that 

 is, up to the point it has reached. I realise that it will require a 

 supplement, yet I felt I ought to so determine before successive 

 mobilisations had left our printing works without the skilled personnel 

 indispensable to the production of my book. How many of our 

 fellow workers, since the first days of August, have left our house to 

 bravely take their place in the arms where they had in their youth 



received military training Meantime, oppressed by 



anxiety for home and country, suffering acutely the pain which so many 

 deaths have caused us, in our own town and in the Breton country, 

 aged by cares more than by years, I fear that the present entomological 

 work, with the portion relating to the Aei/criidoe, in sight of comple- 

 tion, is the last which I shall be able henceforward to produce. 



I had wished, whilst I still had the strength, to complete the 

 Fanne des Lciiidopterea de V Abicvie. It was a purpose that was dear to 

 me ; the war which civilised nations find themselves compelled to 

 maintain, for more than seven months, against the savages, is the 

 reason why the dream will probably not become the realit}." 



Thus abbreviated and (badly) translated, one loses almost all the 

 apt and vivid expression, the poetic instinct and the deep feeling that 

 the whole preface breathes ; but even so it tells us something of the 

 attitude of our leading Lepidopterist, who, whilst he still can do so 



* M. Oberthur adds in a note that Col. Gauthier commanding the 144th 

 Regiment, was killed gloriously, at the outbreak of the war. 



