244 THE SCHOOL OF R]^AUMUR 





in Germany, and blames the laziness of those who pre- 

 ferred to buy the costly exotic cochineal instead of 

 gathering the dye-stuff of their own country. « 



From the scale-insects which Frisch kept for observa- 

 tion ichneumons were hatched ; he supposed that this 

 was the regular transformation, the scale- insect being 

 the larva and the ichneumon the imago of the same 

 species. This mistake is the more surprising because 

 Frisch had already described the parasitic habits of the 

 ichneumons. Breyn some years later corrected Frisch's 

 error, and pointed out the true winged male of the 

 scale-insect. In the preface to the last part of his 

 Insects of Germany Frisch humbly confesses his error. 

 One thread of his warp had been broken ; he could only 

 hope that the rest of the web was sound. In this last 

 preface the old man (he was now past seventy) says 

 that if his activity and his eyesight should be preserved 

 a little longer he would set about the fourth hundred of 

 his descriptions of insects. But this was not to be ; he 

 published no more upon insects. 



iiene:-antoine ferchault de Reaumur 



1683-1757 

 M^moires pour servir k I'histoire des Insectes. 6 vols. 4to. Paris. 1734-42. 



I have found no better account of the life of E^aumur 

 than that written by Cuvier for the Biographie Uni- 

 verselle, and offer a translation of this short biography 

 as an introduction to the Histoire des Insectes. The 

 words in square brackets are additions. 



" Reaumur, one of the most ingenious naturalists and 

 physicists that France has produced, was born at La 

 Rochelle in 1683. He was the son of a judge of appeal 



