MEMOIR OF DE GEER. 



SWAMMERDAM, as has just been seen, was chiefly 

 employed in examining the internal anatomy of in- 

 sects ; the high reputation of the Baron De Geer, 

 of whose life we are now to give a hrief sketch, 

 rests principally on his admirable description and de- 

 lineation of their external structure. Deeply em- 

 bued with a love for investigating the forms and 

 habits of these animals, and possessing powers of 

 observation of the first order, he succeeded in dis- 

 covering many important facts in their economy, 

 which he has detailed in a remarkably clear and in- 

 teresting manner. A pupil of Linnaeus, and an ar- 

 dent admirer of the philosophical French naturalist 

 Reaumur, he combined the systematic regularity of 

 the one, with the experimental skill and patient ob- 

 servation of the other. His works accordingly have 

 been always looked upon as a store-house of im- 

 portant facts, lucid descriptions, and enlightened ob- 

 servations, which have tended perhaps as much as 

 any other publication that could be mentioned, to in- 

 crease our knowledge of the class of animals of 

 which they treat. 



Charles de Geer, Baron of Leutsta, Marshal of the 

 Court of Sweden, Knight of the Polar Star, arid Com- 



