RfiAUMUR 277 



last effort to obtain recognition ; he wrote from his 

 place of banishment a lengthy treatise on corals, which 

 he addressed to the Royal Society of London. From 

 the abstract published in 1752 it would appear that this 

 treatise contained little new matter. The unfavourable 

 opinion of one Dr. Parsons, though containing no 

 experiments or observations, was held to be decisive, 

 and PeyssoneFs treatise was never published. The clear 

 evidence brought forward by John Ellis was required to 

 convince naturalists of the soundness of the views which 

 Peyssonel and Bernard de Jussieu had advocated. 



These extracts and notes from Reaumur must now 

 come to an end. It will be readily understood that 

 they are mere chance samples of the rich mass of 

 observations which fills the Histoire des Insectes. They 

 cannot but fail in giving any just impression of that 

 clear and sprightly style by which Reaumur fixes 

 our attention upon the details of a thousand natural 

 contrivances. 



DE GEER'S HISTORY OF INSECTS. 

 Reaumur's History of Insects was followed up by the 

 seven volumes of De Geer,^ which adopt the methods 

 and even the form of their model as closely as a work 

 based on independent observations could do. De Geer 

 (1720-1778) came of a very notable and public-spirited 

 Dutch family, which had been long settled in Sweden, 

 and had grown wealthy by the possession of iron mines 

 and furnaces. He was educated in Holland, and after- 

 wards attended the lectures of Linnaeus at Upsala. He 

 was only sixteen when he made his first observations on 

 the water-spider, and his first paper was read when he 



^M^moires pour nervir A Vhistoire des Iiuectea. 7 voU. 4to. Stookholni. 

 1752-1778. 



