The Insect as Man's Auxiliary.—The ingenious work which I here confute, and which, assuredly, cannot be read with gratification, is entitled,—Les Insectes, ou Réflexions d'un amateur de la chasse aux petits oiseaux, par E. Gand, Lecture faite à l'Académie d'Amiens (26th December 1856).
A remark which I make a few pages further on, in reference to the necessity of a popular teaching of natural history, well deserves to gain attention. The wealth and morality of the world would be doubled if this teaching could be universal. M. Emile Blanchard's important work, Zoologie Agricole (in folio, 1854), gives the very useful history of the principal insects injurious to our ordinary or ornamental plants. M. Pouchet, in his excellent Mémoire on the Cockchafer, enumerates the principal authors who have described the destructive insects. The United States Congress has entrusted to Mr. Harris the preparation of a history of them.
NOTE 9.—Book ii., Chap. v.
Light and Colour.—My description of tropical climates is borrowed from a large number of travellers,—Humboldt, Azara, Auguste, Saint-Hilaire, Castelneau, Weddell, Charles Waterton, and others. For Brazil and Guiana, I have been greatly indebted to the exceeding courtesy of M. Ferdinand Denis, whose knowledge of those countries is so perfect.
Paris possesses several fine collections of insects, besides that of the Museum. One of the best-known is Doctor Bois Duval's (lepidoptera). An establishment exclusively devoted to the sale of insects may be found at No. 17 Rue des Saints-Pères. The magnificent collection to which I refer on page 176, is that of M. Douë, who most readily showed it to us, and explained it with infinite complaisance.
The anecdote which concludes chapter xii. (The Ornament of Living Flames) is related, in reference to the women of Santa Cruz in Bolivia, by the always accurate Dr. Weddell. The Indian phrase, "Replace it whence thou borrowedst it," is recorded by Waterton.
NOTE 10.—Book ii., Chap. viii.
Renovation of Human Arts by Study of the Insect.—Who has not seen that for a long time the art of decoration has made no progress, does but incessantly repeat itself? When a particular subject has lasted ten years, men think to rejuvenate it with a few variations. In a life of half a century I have several times seen this rotation of fashion, which would appear singularly monotonous if we did not possess in so high a degree the gift of forgetfulness.