20 MEMOIR OF LATRETLLE. 



ous branches of education. While here, he had the 

 good fortune to acquire the friendship and good 

 offices of the celebrated crys'allographer and mi- 

 neralogist Haiiy. Our sources of information do 

 not supply us with any intimation as to his progress, 

 during this period, in natural history ; but there 

 can be no doubt that he was attending to the history 

 of insects, from the knowledge he soon after showed 

 that he had acquired in that department. 



He retired to the country in 1786, and during his 

 residence there, devoted himself entirely and with 

 the utmost zeal to the study of insects. The fruit 

 of some of his researches appeared a few years 

 afterwards in a Memoir on the Mutillas of France, 

 insects belonging to the order Hymenoptera. This 

 essay, which we believe to have been the first of his 

 publications on Entomology, appeared in the " Actes 

 de la Soc. d'Hist. Nat. de Paris," vol. 1, and it was 

 not long in being succeeded by several others. 



On the termination of his literary studies, it was 

 designed by Latreille's friends that he should enter 

 the church, and his education had been in some 

 measure directed with that view. His constitution 

 was not robust, and they probably thought that the 

 tranquil duties of the sacred office were better suited 

 to him than the active and laborious exertions re- 

 quired in most secular pursuits. It was little sup- 

 posed that, in making such a selection, they were 

 taking the very step which was destined at an after 

 period to expose him most to persecution and out- 

 rage. 



