260 THE SCHOOL OF Rl^AUMUR 





from putrefactive change. When his kite died, K^aumur 

 carried on the experiments with dogs and sheep. These 

 results were not forgotten, and Reaumur's method became 

 still more productive in the hands of Spallanzani.] 



"But of all the works of E^aumur, the most remarkable 

 are the Memoires pour servir a VHistoire des Insectes, 

 of which six quarto volumes were issued between 1734 

 and 1742. This history can never cease to be studied 

 with the keenest interest by those who would frame an 

 exact notion of nature, and of the marvellous variety 

 of means which she employs in the preservation of 

 organisms apparently so frail and easily destroyed. 

 Reaumur displays extraordinary sagacity in observing 

 the special instincts which ensure the safety of these 

 feeble creatures, and keeps our attention alive by a 

 continual succession of new and striking contrivances. 

 His style is somewhat diffuse, but so clear as to render 

 everything plain, and the facts which he relates are 

 rigorously true. The History of Insects can be reac^Bj 

 with all the interest of the most absorbing romance. 

 Unfortunately it remains unfinished ; the manuscript of 

 the seventh volume, bequeathed at the author's death to 

 the Academy of Sciences, was in such disorder and so 

 incomplete as to be unfit for publication. In it Reaumur 

 had intended to speak of crickets and grasshoppers, 

 while the beetles were to have occupied the eighth and 

 following volumes. The six volumes which actually 

 appeared treat of the remaining orders of insects. 

 [Cuvier's rapid summary of the History of Insects is 

 omitted.] 



" The History of Insects had placed Reaumur in the 

 front rank of naturalists by the time that the first 

 volumes of the Natural History of Bufi'on began to 

 appear. Bufibn somewhat eclipsed by the brilliancy of 



