Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Exotic Moths.djvu/27

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MEMOIR OF LATREILLE.
27

into his place of confinement, and upon making inquiry he was informed by the prisoner that the insect was very rare, and that he was desirous of sending it to two young naturalists then residing in Bordeaux. His wishes were complied with, and the insect was transmitted to MM. Dargelas and Bory de Saint-Vincent. Latreille's eminence as an entomologist happened to be previously known to these individuals, and they immediately exerted themselves in his favour, and that with such success, that he was ultimately released. He has gratefully commemorated this singular incident in more than one of his works. A figure of the insect is engraved on his tomb; and most of the entomologists of France preserve, in a conspicuous part of their cabinets, the Necrobie-Latreille, in gratitude for the service it rendered to their master. Nay, the more sentimental of them, feeling even this to be an inadequate indication of the emotion of their hearts, have an inscription attached to it, intimating that they asked and obtained from the hands of their honoured master, the specimen ex-

    tibiæ slender, without spines: tarsi four-jointed, the joints dilated and membranous at the apex; the unguicular one long and slender.
    The species ruficollis is oblong ovate, covered with long hairs, shining: eyes and antennæ black: head blue-green, punctured: thorax somewhat quadrate, with the sides rounded, rufous, punctate: elytra rufous at the base, the rest greenish-blue, with eight punctured striæ on each, the interstices finely shagreened; thorax beneath and breast rufous, abdomen black; legs rufous.