February, 1914 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Societ}) 11 



For the next thirteen years the career of this soldier of 

 fortune is the romance of all the successful supporters of Napo- 

 leon. Never away from the field, save for the respite of the 

 Emperor's exile at Elba, he stood at Waterloo, general of a 

 division and Aide de Camp to Napoleon. He had acquired both 

 riches and power, as did all the generals who gave their best to 

 the short lived dynasty. 



Yet this madcap general never ceased to be a coleopterist, 

 never spent an hour without a collecting bottle in his holster. 

 His soldiers called him the French equivalent of the "bughouse 

 general." The specimens caught on the field of battle were 

 posted to Paris and kept by his faithful agent d'affaires. At 

 the battle of Alcanizas, which he personally won, while actually 

 under fire he spied a Cehrio undulatus on a flower. Dismounting 

 he bottled it. An hour later a stray ball shattered his holster, 

 breaking the bottle. Dismounting again, he searched until the 

 beetle was recovered. This specimen held the place of honor 

 in his collection until it was dispersed. He had in his collection 

 a number of specimens labelled Quatre Bras and Waterloo. 



Waterloo was not only Waterloo to the Emperor but to 

 all the generals of his adherents. Dejean found himself pro- 

 scribed and a price on his head. His property, however, was 

 safe, hidden with trustworthy friends. This was the .time to 

 take a vacation and he did so. The Court of Austria was open 

 to him. For three years he collected through the Balkans as 

 far as Austria held dominion. Political disabilities were re- 

 moved in 1818 and he returned to Paris. For the rest of his 

 life he was rich and respected. In 1821 he published another 

 catalogue of his beetles, numbering 6,692. This was rather 

 more than the total number described from Europe, but this 

 is not surprising. When Henshaw's check-list was published in 

 1885 it contained 9,238 species, while the Leconte collection had 

 about 1,100. There were merely more species to name. In 

 1828 he received a long visit from Major Leconte. As Dejean 

 writes in a preface, this gentleman gave him American species 

 with a "rare generosity." As a matter of fact Leconte gave 

 him nearly 800 species. Eschscholtz had visited him and gave 

 him cotypes of all he could spare from his own and Chami.sso's 

 collections. He was now Baron Dejean. He financed a n m- 



