252 THE SCHOOL OF Rl^AUMUR 





Besides the numerous memoirs which he contributed 

 to the Receuil of the Academy (where also is to be 

 found his Eloge by Grandjean de Fouchy) and other 

 published writings, he left behind him 138 portfolios 

 filled with complete or imperfect works and observations, 

 as well as innumerable other papers. Among them was 

 found a large part of his History of the Useful Arts, 

 almost fit for publication, besides many memoranda for 

 what still was left unfinished." 



[During the years 1742-57 E^aumur hardly publishe 

 anything, and there is no reason to suppose that he 

 wrote much. We are left to conjecture why a life which 

 had been so strenuous should close in comparative inertia, 

 while the concluding volumes of the great History of 

 Insects remained unwritten.] 



or 



f 



I 



THE HISTOIRE DES INSECTES 



In 1734, when the first volume of the Histoire des 

 Insectes appeared, Keaumur was fifty-one, and had still 

 twenty-three years to live. Linnaeus was a young man 

 of twenty-seven, who had just completed his journey to 

 Lapland ; Bufibn was already a member of the Academy 

 of Sciences, but had not as yet paid any attention to 

 natural history. Swammerdam's Biblia Natures, though 

 the author had long been dead, was still unpublished ; it 

 did not appear until 1737-8. 



The Histoire owed its origin to memoirs contributed 

 by Reaumur to the Academy of Sciences, which were 

 subsequently enlarged and popularised. The six volumes 

 which he lived to complete are handsomely printed in 

 quarto and illustrated by excellent plates. Edaumur 

 did not draw with his own hand, but he tells us that he 

 closely directed his artists. The style is flowing and 

 animated, and few books on natural history are so 



