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I am trying hard to push the entomological work which Maurice is publishing. It is very fine. I am doing for him what I have never done for myself. I am writing to the newspaper men. I shall recommend Mademoiselle Bosquet to whom I can, but that appeals to another public, and I don't stand in as well with the literary men as I do with the scholars.
"He's still away," said Cissy, feeling herself on safe ground, though she was not aware of her father's entomological habits. "In San Francisco, I think." She was glad to get away from Mr. Windibrook's "heartiness" and console herself with Mrs. Windibrook's constitutional depression, which was partly the result of nervous dyspepsia and her husband's boisterous cordiality.
"You must be very careful in packing those butterfly cases; the slightest jar might break wings and antennas, you know." Le Bihan shook hands with me and pointed to the great pile of boxes. "They're all cork lined," he said, "but Fortin and I are putting felt around each box. The Entomological Society of Paris pays the freight."
But something instinctive prevented that, and with the finest resolve not to be "silly" and prudish she found that whenever he became at all bold in this matter she became severely scientific and impersonal, almost entomological indeed, in her method; she killed every remark as he made it and pinned it out for examination. In the biological laboratory that was their invincible tone.
It is a true Malthus' delight, and, following that sanguinary philosopher, we may believe that our Dragon fly is an entomological Tamerlane or Napoleon sent into the world by a kind Providence to prevent too close a jostling among the myriads of insect life.
Here was one of those anonymous, entomological existences such as are to be met with in many large tenements where, at the end of four years, you unexpectedly learn that up on the fourth floor there is an old man lodging who knew Voltaire, Pilatre de Rozier, Beaujon, Marcel, Mole, Sophie Arnould, Franklin, and Robespierre.
He classifies his subjects, dividing them into regiments with barbarous labels, a work which seems to him the highest expression of entomological science. Names, nothing but names: the rest hardly counts. The persecutor of the Pieris used to be called Microgaster, that is to say, little belly: to-day she is called Apanteles, that is to say, the incomplete. What a fine step forward!
This is equally unexpected and creditable. And yet it does not appear that his personal conduct was characterised by anything like rigour, for, as an example, we find, from the journal of an entomological excursion in 1797, that it was commenced on a Sunday afternoon, and involved one other Sunday of constant travelling.
Perhaps a northern angler will never quite master the delicacy of this sport, nor acquire the entomological knowledge which seems to be necessary, nor make up his mind between the partisans of the light one-handed rod and the double-handed rod. Literature knows no Trades Unions, but if things go on as they are at present, perhaps we shall hear of literary rattening and picketing.
A society may call itself an Entomological Society, but the man who arrogates such a broad title as that to himself, in the present state of science, is a pretender, sir, a dilettante, an impostor! No man can be truly called an entomologist, sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.
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