220 Martins, on the Life and Labors of De Candolle. 



servation. At first this occupation had only the character of a 

 pastime, or recreation. What afterwards suddenly induced him 

 to devote himself wholly to the " amabilis scientia," was the 

 excitement which he experienced in 1796 in the lecture room of 

 the excellent Vaucher.* 



The number of teachers at the Academy of Geneva was at 

 that time very small. Mr. P. Vaucher, professor of theology, who 

 soon after proved himself an accurate observer by his account of 

 the Conferva? of fresh water, was giving in that year a free course 

 on botany. De Candolle had only heard the first half of the 

 course, when he returned to his parents at Champagne, determined 

 to devote himself exclusively to this science. The attractive de- 

 scriptions of Vaucher had revealed to him his own genius ; and 

 he chose at the age of eighteen the vocation to which he remain- 

 ed faithful during his whole life, with an enthusiasm which did 

 not desert the man of sixty-three even on his death-bed. In 

 these lectures he had become acquainted with the organs of 

 plants. Returning to the country, he began at once to describe 

 the plants which he found, indicating them by their common, 

 not their scientific names, of which he was at that time ignorant. 

 He considered himself fortunate a few months afterwards, when 

 he received the first edition of Lamarck's Flore Frangaise, and 

 a few other botanical books, whose true value he immediately 

 understood. 



It was the custom at that time, in his native city, for the sons 

 •of rich parents to study law. De Candolle consequently began 

 this study in the year 1796, but with the fixed intention of not 

 allowing it to affect his future destination. One of his friends, 

 who was closely connected with Dolomieu, induced him to pass 

 the winters of 1796 and 1797 in Paris, under the eye of that cel- 

 ebrated observer of nature. He received his father's permission 

 for this, and lived in the house of Dolomieu, by whom he was 

 treated with paternal tenderness. He now attended the lectures 

 of Vauquelin, Fourcroy, Charles, Portal, and Cuvier. In the 



* [The teacher survived for about a year, his more celebrated pupil ; vide Bo- 

 tanical Necrology in this Journal, Vol. xliii, p. 215. An interesting biographical 

 notice of M. Vaucher, from the pen of Alphonse De Candolle, has recently been 

 published in the Bibliothtque Universelle at Geneva; an English translation of 

 which appeared in the Jlnnals and Magazine of Natural History, for November 

 and December last. — A. G.] 



