Ill CERCERIS BUPRESTICIDA 41 



parsimony of that day in educational matters ; thus 

 did Red tape will it. I was a free-lance, son of 

 my solitary studies. Thus, amid my books I was 

 putting aside acute professorial worries when I 

 chanced to light on an entomological pamphlet 

 which had come into my hands I forget how. It 

 was by the patriarch of entomology of that day, the 

 venerable savant L^on Dufour, on the habits of 

 a Hymenopteron whose prey was the Buprestis. 

 Certainly long ere this I had felt a great interest 

 in insects ; from childhood I had delighted in beetles, 

 bees, and butterflies ; as far back as I can recollect 

 I see myself enraptured by the splendours of a 

 beetle's elytra, or the wings of the great Swallowtail 

 butterfly. The materials lay ready on the hearth, 

 but the spark to kindle them had been lacking. 

 The accidental perusal of L^on Dufour's pamphlet 

 was that spark. I had a mental revelation. So 

 then to arrange lovely beetles in a cork box, to 

 name and classify was not the whole of science ; 

 there was something far superior, namely, the close 

 study of the structure, and still more of the faculties 

 of insects. Thrilled by emotion I read of a grand 

 instance of this. A little later, aided by those 

 fortunate circumstances which always befriend the 

 ardent seeker, I published my first entomological 

 work, the complement of L^on Dufour's. It gained 

 the honours of the Institute of France, a prize for 

 experimental physiology being adjudged to it, and — 

 far sweeter reward ! — shortly after I received a most 

 flattering and encouraging letter from the very man 

 who had inspired me. From far away in the Landes 

 the venerated master sent me the cordial expression 



