Foreign Butterflies

Lizars. sc.
LAMARCK
Engraved for the Naturalist’s Library
In all, Thirty-two Plates in this Volume. With one Plate double, making the number equal to THIRTY-THREE.
Among the many eminent French naturalists, whose loss to science we have so often had occasion to lament during the few past years, the above individual occupied a conspicuous place. He was long known in Paris by his public prelections, and his numerous writings have procured for him a high degree of reputation throughout Europe. In this country he is best known by his admirable works on invertebrate animals, which may be said to have formed a new era in the history of that extensive department of the animal kingdom. But his studies had a very extensive range; many of the most interesting inquiries which for ages have fixed the attention of mankind, were the subjects of his meditation, and on most of them he formed a number of definite ideas which he promulgated under the form of theories. Although these speculations are of a highly fanciful description, and some of them greatly to be deprecated on account of their hurtful tendency, yet they merit attention as the productions of a mind remarkable for originality and penetration, as well as for extensive and varied knowledge.
Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, generally called the Chevalier de Lamarck, was descended from an ancient family of some distinction, possessed of considerable property in the province of Bearn. He was born at Bezantin, a small village in Picardy, on the 1st August, 1744. His fathers pecuniary resources having become considerably impaired, among other things by the maintenance of a numerous family, Jean Baptiste being his eleventh child, he found it necessary to educate his sons for some useful profession. Several of them entered the army, and the subject of the present notice was destined for the church, which at that period offered many lucrative and influential appointments to the members of noble families. To qualify him for this office, he was sent to study under the Jesuits at Amiens, with whom he remained for a considerable time. From the first, however, he appears to have had some aversion to the profession selected for him by his father, and this was increased to positive dislike by the mode of life which he was obliged to lead at college. His active and excursive mind submitted with impatience to the punctilious restraints of college discipline, and the mechanical routine of studies prescribed indiscriminately to all, without reference to natural bias or acquired predilection. Most of his companions were actively engaged in the field or in other public services, for France was now occupied with the eventful struggle which commenced in 1756. His eldest brother had fallen in the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom; others of them were still in the army; and all his most cherished associations were connected with the profession of arms. With so much to inspire an aversion to seclusion and comparative inactivity, nothing could have induced him to remain at college but the authority of his father, who still enforced compliance with his wishes. That salutary restraint, however, having been removed by death, in 1760, no time was lost by young Lamarck in following his own inclinations. With nothing but a letter of recommendation from a lady residing in the neighbourhood of his father, addressed to the colonel of a French regiment, he set out for the army, which was then in Germany. Lamarck’s somewhat diminutive stature and boyish appearance, which made him look younger than he really was, were ill fitted to make amends for the want of influential patronage. His reception was by no means flattering, but nothing could daunt the zeal of the young volunteer. He joined a company of grenadiers, and determined to trust to fortune and his own exertions for obtaining that rank which individuals of his birth and education commonly acquire by other means.