STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 139 



and melancholy. He never played at any of the 

 boys' games, and seemed as insensible of all that 

 was going on around him as a somnambulist. His 

 eye seemed turned inward; his thoughts moved 

 amid problems and abstractions. Nothing could 

 exceed the insatiable ardor of his intellect. Besides 

 his special administrative studies, he gave himself 

 to Botany, Zoology, Philosophy, Mathematics, and 

 the history of literature. No work was too volu- 

 minous or too heavy for him. He was reading all 

 day long, and a great part of the night. "I re- 

 member well," says Pfaff, " how he used to sit by 

 my bedside going regularly through Bayle's Dic- 

 tionary. Falling asleep over my own book, I used 

 to awake after an hour or two, and find him mo- 

 tionless as a statue, bent over Bayle." It was dur- 

 ing these years that he laid the basis of that exten- 

 sive erudition which distinguished his works in 

 after life, and which is truly remarkable when we 

 reflect that Cuvier was not in the least a bookworm, 

 but was one of the most active workers, drawing his 

 knowledge of details from direct inspection when- 

 ever it was possible, and not from the reports of 

 others. It was here, also, that he preluded to his 

 success as a professor, astonishing his friends and 

 colleagues by the clearness of his exposition, which 

 he rendered still more striking by his wonderful 

 mastery with the pencil. One may safely say that 

 there are few talents which are not available in 

 Natural History ; a talent for drawing is pre-emi- 



