The Serlgnan Jubilee 



scientists, Mr. Edmond Perrier, Director of 

 the Museum of Natural History, not content 

 with saluting him as " one of the princes of 

 natural history," speaks of his literary work 

 in the following terms : 



The ten volumes of his Souvenirs Entomologiques 

 will remain one of the most intensely interesting 

 works which have ever been written concerning 

 the habits of insects, and also one of the most 

 remarkable records of the psychology of a great 

 observer of the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. In them the author depicts to the life not 

 only the habits and the instincts of the insects; 

 he gives us a full-length portrait of himself. He 

 makes us share his busy life, amid the subjects of 

 observation which incessantly claim his attention. 

 The world of insects hums and buzzes about him, 

 obsesses him, calling his attention from all direc- 

 tions, exciting his curiosity; he does not know 

 which way to turn. Overwhelmed by the innum- 

 erable winged army of the drinkers of nectar who, 

 on the fine summer days, invade his field of obser- 

 vation, he calls to his aid his whole household: his 

 daughters, Claire, Aglae, and Anna, his son Paul, 

 his workmen, and above all his man-servant Favier, 

 an old countryman who has spent his life in the 

 barracks of the French colonies, a man of a thou- 

 sand expedients, who watches his master w^ith an 

 incredulous yet admiring eye, listening to him but 

 refusing to be convinced, and shocking him by 



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