PROFESSOR OF INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 47 
Saint-Samson, in the Department of Seine-et-Oise, 
not far to the northward of Beauvais, and about fifty 
miles from Paris. It is probable that as a proprietor 
of a landed property he passed the summer season, 
or a part of it, on this estate. 
This request was, we may believe, made from no 
unworthy or mercenary motive, but because he 
thought that such an indemnity was his due. Some 
years after (in 1809) the chair of zodlogy, newly 
formed by the Faculté des Sciences in Paris, was 
offered to him. Desirable as the salary would have 
been in his straitened circumstances, he modestly re- 
fused the offer, because he felt unable at that time of 
life (he was, however, but sixty-five years of age) to 
make the studies required worthily to occupy the 
position. 
One of Lamarck’s projects, which he was never 
able to carry out, for it was even then quite beyond 
the powers of any man single-handed to undertake, was 
his Systéme de la Nature. We will let him describe it 
in his own words, especially since the account is some- 
what autobiographical. It is the second memoir he 
addressed to the Committee of Public Instruction of 
the National Convention, dated 4 vendémiaire, l’an 
III. (179): 
“In my first memoir I have given you an account of 
the works which I have published and of those which I 
have undertaken to contribute to the progress of natu- 
ral history; also of the travels and researches which I 
have made. 
“ But for a long time I have had in view a very im- 
portant work—perhaps better adapted for education 
