They
remind me of an insect, but I could not mistake them for one.
--Oh, you couldn't mistake those dried leaves for an insect, hey? Well,
how can you mistake that insect for dried leaves? That is the question;
for insect it is,--phyllum siccifolium, the "walking leaf," as some have
called it.--The Master had a hearty laugh at my expense.
The Scarabee did not seem to be amused at the Master's remarks or at my
blunder. Science is always perfectly serious to him; and he would no
more laugh over anything connected with his study, than a clergyman would
laugh at a funeral.
They send me all sorts of trumpery,--he said, Orthoptera and Lepidoptera;
as if a coleopterist--a scarabeeist--cared for such things. This
business is no boy's play to me. The insect population of the world is
not even catalogued yet, and a lifetime given to the scarabees is a small
contribution enough to their study. I like your men of general
intelligence well enough,--your Linnwuses and your Buffons and your
Cuviers; but Cuvier had to go to Latreille for his insects, and if
Latreille had been able to consult me,--yes, me, gentlemen!--he would n't
have made the blunders he did about some of the coleoptera.
The old Master, as I think you must have found out by this time,--you,
Beloved, I mean, who read every word,--has a reasonably good opinion, as
perhaps he has a right to have, of his own intelligence and acquirements.
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