ORDER I. BEETLES. 27 



you will be hospitably received and entertained as an old 

 friend. If the rest of the world were more like the poor 

 people of the Crimea, " 'twould be something." That coun- 

 try was conquered at the end of the last century by the fa- 

 mous Potemkin, the favorite of Catharine II., and its sov- 

 ereign, the Khan, sent a prisoner to St. Petersburg, where 

 he died. 



In this connection, and at the risk of still further digress- 

 ing from the subject-matter of this work, I feel it a duty in- 

 cumbent upon me not to let this opportunity pass without 

 doing an act of simple justice to the memory and the char- 

 acter of one of the most distinguished Naturalists of his 

 time, Pallas, long a resident of the Crimea. 



Only a short time since, the Hon. Samuel Arnold, Lieu- 

 tenant-governor of Rhode Island, handed me Mr. Ditson's 

 written work, entitled " Circassia, or a Tour to the Cau- 

 casus," in which I was surprised to find some statements 

 which I knew to be erroneous, and which I can only ac- 

 count for from the superficial and one-sided view of things 

 a traveler is liable to take who rapidly passes through a 

 country and receives his impressions from only partial 

 sources. But the erroneous impressions which Mr. Ditson 

 conveys with regard to the world-renowned Naturalist, 

 Pallas, particularly demand correction from me, because, 

 during my residence in St. Petersburg, I was acquainted 

 with his most intimate friends, and familiarly knew his 

 whole life and character. Besides, afterward, at Simpher- 

 opol, in the Crimea, in 1825, 1 was hospitably received and 

 entertained by Madame Caroline Ivanowna Pallas, the wid- 

 ow of that distinguished Philosopher, and from her own lips, 

 of course, acquired the most accurate and reliable informa- 

 tion with regard to herself and her husband. 



Speaking of Baktschiserai, the former residence of the 

 Khans of the Crimea, Mr. Ditson says: " In this vicinity 

 lived Pallas, who came here and wrote his famous book of 



