36 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



The high esteem entertained by Humboldt for the father 

 was likewise accorded to the son, Isidore Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire, who, born in 1805, was early distinguished for his 

 proficiency in science, and devoted himself to the study of 

 zoology ; at the age of twenty-eight he was elected a member 

 of the Academy of Sciences in Paris. He died in 1861, leaving 

 behind him many valuable works on zoology. 



Among the zoologists to be ranked among Humboldt's per- 

 sonal friends, we have yet to mention Henri Milne-Edwards, 

 a native of Belgium, who was born at Bruges in the year 

 1800. Educated at Paris, he entered the medical profession in 

 1823, but turning his attention to natural history, he soon 

 acquired distinction by his writings, and for one of his earliest 

 works, ' Eecherches anatomiques sur les Crustacees,' published 

 in 1828, he received the public acknowledgments of the 

 Academy. His experiments upon the nervous system with 

 galvanism gained him the friendship of Humboldt, who offered 

 him valuable assistance from his own experience, and pro- 

 posed to communicate the results to the Academy. Humboldt 

 concludes this letter with : ! ' Pray excuse the length of this 

 interminable epistle. It is a pleasure to hold converse with 

 those in whom vast stores of knowledge are united to a sim- 

 plicity of character and benevolence of disposition that inspire 

 the confidence of the ignorant.' Humboldt, from his exalted 

 position, could scarcely have expressed in a more flattering 

 manner his admiration for the talents of his young friend. 

 These words seem to bear the impress of his long sojourn in 

 France, and recall to mind the saying of Queen Isabella : 

 ' None but a Frenchman knows how to pay a compliment.' 



We may also mention two other zoologists who hold a 

 distinguished place in science Provencal and the Comte 

 Etienne de Lacepede. The latter in early life served in the 

 Bavarian army, and subsequently devoting himself, under the 

 guidance of Buffon and Daubenton, to the study of, natural 

 history, he won a position equally high among men of science 

 as among statesmen. He was born in the year 1756, and died 

 of small-pox in 1825. 



1 De la Roquette, vol. i. p. 251. 



