l6 LÉPIDOPTEROLOGIE COMPAREE 



cleep a dcbt of gratitude is owed to the immédiate predecessors, 

 lives ■' oscure ma fcrtili, " of those who, following m their foot- 

 steps, hâve run to carth " the unseeii, small, but million-mui- 

 dering cause " of the worst ills of mankind. 



M. Oberthiir has lived to witness the révolution, slow indeed 

 111 coming, m the ideas of manl<ind concerning the relations of 

 the msect world and humanity, and its proper place in the 

 cosmos of the Création. He has seen entomology, from being 

 the Cinderella of the natural sciences, in France as in England, 

 come into her kingdom ; and to himself and to those who hâve 

 benefited by the opportunities he has offercd them belongs a 

 lion's sharc of the achievement. 



Au milieu des difficuhés incessantes de la vie, il est bien doux de 

 ])ouvoir se concentrer parfois dans une étude cjui nous repose en nous 

 faisant momentanément oublier les noirs soucis. L'Entomologie nous vaut 

 des amitiés fidèles ; c'est une consolation qui réconforte puissamment au.x 

 jours d'épreuve. Elle nous porte à apprécier et à aimer toujours davan- 

 tage la Nature, œuvre du Très-Haut. 



This is M Oberthiir's apologia; and dunng a long life he 

 has made many friends, known and unknown to him, in the 

 world of natural history. His collectors hâve ransacked the 

 world, actually from China to Peru, in scarch of material ; and 

 for tlic traveller and tourist across the Channel his pages reveal 

 also glimpses of the remoter and less frequented régions of 

 France, bcauty spots without peer m a land of beauty. For 

 M. Oberthiir excels as a descriptive wntcr; and his invitations 

 to the road, pieced into the mosaïc of his notes, will appeal to 

 many to whom the wmged flowers of the air are but of subsi- 

 diary account. Tlow few travellers on their way to Biarritz hâve 

 given a thought to Angoulême, and, away from the Royal city, 

 to the valley of Fes Eaux Claires, where " we, too, hâve been 

 m Arcadie, " beside the spring, splendidïor vitro, which wells 

 out clear and cold beneath the sky of the presque-Midi — the 

 fairv haunt of the loveliest and rarest of the " Blue " butterflies 



