28 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
travels, and so pleased the Empress Catharine by the glow- 
ing description he gave of the country, that she thought she 
could not reward him better than by giving him a portion 
of it, with an income of two thousand rubles. Pallas con- 
sidered it but as a species of exile, and was overwhelmed. 
He saw that he was the dupe of a simple desire to make the 
newly-acquired territory grateful to his sovereign, and he 
sat himself down,'without the power or courage to com- 
plain, suffering in body and mind till the shades of an un- 
ending night vailed him from the world.” 
Now the facts are these: Professor Pallas, Member of 
the Imperial Academy of Science at St. Petersburg, Coun- 
cilor of State, and Knight of several Orders, was born in 
1741, at Berlin, where he acquired a distinguished reputa- 
tion by his researches and writings on Natural History. 
When the Empress Catharine II. of Russia learned the 
fame of this great man, and his eminence in his department 
of science, she invited him to her court, and then proposed 
to him, as a Naturalist, to survey Siberia, the Crimea, and 
the Cis and Trans-Caucasian provinces. He accepted her 
proposition, and spent several years in traveling through 
the countries, all the while being recompensed in a prince-_ 
ly manner by the Empress, and journeying in the greatest 
style and expense. His many classical and valuable works 
with regard to the Zoology and Botany of those provinces, 
published in French, German, and the Russian languages, 
were the result of his extensive labors, and to this day at- 
test his eminent ability in the department of Natural His- 
tory. 
On his return to St. Petersburg he offered to sell his 
large collection of natural productions for the sum of fif- 
teen thousand rubles; but when the Empress heard of it 
she wrote him, telling him that he knew very well how to 
write a learned work, but that he did not know how to 
make a calculation, for his cabinet was worth twenty thou- 
