20 
MEMOIR OF LATREILLE. 
ous branches of education. While here, he had the 
good fortune to acquire the friendship and good 
offices of the celebrated cryslallogvapher 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 ho 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. 
