“We are as yet novices in the ways of the Heracleans,” urged Mr. Dow, “and but imperfectly understand their motives of action or system of self government. To judge them from our partial impressions, which your personal opinions bespeak, is proof positive that the cavils of surmise, peculiar to individuals, originated the prejudices to which you have given voice. To me the addenda to their morning salutation and evening anthem of praise, as rendered by M. Hollydorf, bore advisory reference to the source of their happiness.” M. Hollydorf fully endorsed Mr. Dow’s views. CHAPTER XI. M. Hollydorf after morning salutation mustered his assistants for the inauguration of the legitimate duties entailed by his commission; as he had become fully impressed with the necessity of “working up” a sufficient number of experimental proofs for the basis of a preliminary despatch of intention. Selecting a retired portion of the latifundium for his field of operations they commenced their labors in good earnest. Of all the civilized nations of the world, we can claim for the Germans a just preëminence in those departments of science devoted to the investigations of the habits and associations of insect life. In truth, the enthusiasm shown for insect explorations has extended itself to every department of their national existence; from the palace to the cabin particular attention is devoted to hunting, impaling, and preserving their cadavers, arranged in order, genera, and species, in mausoleum cabinets for mummified exhibition as shrines for the enraptured gaze of Teutonic devotees. Even the mediæval Gael of the Scottish Highlands never possessed, in living endowment, an attritive iota of the associate luxurious zest imparted from their joint stock investments, or the Egyptian, of yore, in his necropolitan collections, a source of such vain-glorious gratification.