mmer season, or a part of it, on this
estate.

This request was, we may believe, made from no unworthy or mercenary
motive, but because he thought that such an indemnity was his due. Some
years after (in 1809) the chair of zooelogy, newly formed by the Faculte
des Sciences in Paris, was offered to him. Desirable as the salary would
have been in his straitened circumstances, he modestly refused the
offer, because he felt unable at that time of life (he was, however, but
sixty-five years of age) to make the studies required worthily to occupy
the position.

One of Lamarck's projects, which he was never able to carry out, for it
was even then quite beyond the powers of any man single-handed to
undertake, was his _Systeme de la Nature_. We will let him describe it
in his own words, especially since the account is somewhat
autobiographical. It is the second memoir he addressed to the Committee
of Public Instruction of the National Convention, dated 4 vendemiaire,
l'an III. (1795):

"In my first memoir I have given you an account of the works which I
have published and of those which I have undertaken to contribute to
the progress of natural history; also of the travels and researches
which I have made.

"But for a long time I have had in view a very important
work--perhaps better adapted for education in France than those I
have already composed or undertaken--a work, in short, which the
National Convention should without doubt order, and of which no part
could be written so advantageously as in Paris, where are to be
found abundant means for carrying it to completion.

"This is a _Systeme de la Nature_, a work analogous to the _Systema
naturae_ of Linnaeus, but written in French, and presenting the
picture complete, concise, and methodical, of all the natural
productions observed up to this day. This important work (of
Linnaeus), which the young Frenchmen who intend to devote themselves
to the study of natural history always require, is the object of
speculations by foreign authors, and has already passed through
thirteen different editions. Moreover, their works, which, to our
shame, we have to use, because we have none written expressly for
us, are filled (especially the last edition edited by Gmelin) with
gross mistakes, omissions of double and triple occurrence, and
errors in synonymy, and present many generic characters which are
inexact or imperceptible and many ser