LATREILLE, PIERRE-ANDRE, a French naturalist, particularly distinguished in the department of entomology, was born at Brivea on the 29th of November 1762. Having shown an early taste for the study of natural history, and for literary pursuits generally, the Baron D'Espagnac, governor of the Hotel des Invalides, brought him to Paris in 1778, and placed him in the college of the Cardinal Lemoine to be educated for the Church. Here he formed a friendship with the Abbd flatly, who was a professor at the college. In 1786 he retired into the country, where he devoted all his leisure time to researches on insects. On going to Paris two years afterwards he formed an acquaintance with Fabricius, Olivier, and M. Bosc. Some curious plants which he presented to Lamarck procured him also the friendship of that great naturalist, whom ha afterwards assisted in his lectures, and succeeded as professor In the Museum of Natural History. A memoir on the Mutilles of France (Hymenopterous buds), which was inserted in the ' Acts of the Society of Natural History at Paris,' procured him, in 1791, the title of Correspondent to this society, and shortly after wards of the Linnazan Society of London. At this period he also wrote some of the articles on Entomology in the Encyclopddie Ildthodique.' Hitherto he had only devoted a small portion of his time to scientific pursuits, not allowing It to interfere with the duties of his profession; but the revolution, which created so many reverses of fortune, obliged bins to pursue fora living that study which he had only cultivated Were as an amusement.
Being an ecclesiastic, he was devoted to persecution, and twice con demned to banishment, but he escaped this punishment through the influence of his scieutific friends. Returning to Paris iu 1798, he was named a Correspondent of the Institute ; and through the recom mendation of Lacdpede, Lamarck, Cuvier, and Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, hd obtained employment in the Museum, where he was appointed to arrange the collection of insects. When Lamarck became blind, Latreille was named assistant professor, and he continued Lamarck's lectures on the Invertebrate Animals till that naturaliat'e death In 1829, when he filled the vacant chair of zoology.
The number of his literary productions is very considerable. Le Magazin Encyclopedique' of Millin, the Annales ' and the Mdmoires du Museum,' and the 'Bulletin de Is Socidtb philomathique ' contain many papers and observations by him. In 1802 he published the
'111.toire des Fourmia,' which also contained several memoirs on other subjects, as on Bees end Spiders. Among his publications there is one which has been highly spoken of, and which differs In its object con siderably from his other writings; this is a dissertation on the expe dition of the consul Suetonius Panlinus in Africa, and upon the ancient geography of that country. His memoirs upon the sacred insects of the Egyptians, end on the general geographical distribution of insects, excited the attention of all naturalists. Latreille's 'PrOcis des Caracteresgdneriques des Insectes' (Drives, 1796) was the first work in which these animals were distributed in natural families, an .I it formed the basis of his ' Genera Cruataceorum et Inaectorum ' (4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1806.9), which Is by far the best of all his productions. His 'Considdratious gdoersles our l'Ordre naturcl des Animaux coin posant lea classes des Crustaces, des Araehnides, et des Iusectes,' and the third volume of the ' itegne Animal' of Cuvier are only extracts, more or less modified, of this work. The system by which the insects are arranged in the ' Regne Animal' (the entomological part of which, it must be remembered, was writteu by Latreille, though it all stands under the name of Cuvier) Is pronounced by Mr. Swainson to be "the most elaborate and the moat perfect in its details that has yet been given to the world." It soou superseded that of Fabricius. "It possesses the advantage of being founded on a consideration of the entire structure of these animals, and hence gives us the first example, in theory, of the natural principle of classification." In Sonnini'e edition of Buffon, Latreille has given a general history of insects ; he also wrote a Histoire des Salamandrea; and many other works.
Latreille, by the almost universal consent of naturalists, stood at the head of the department of entomology in his own and other countries. He deserved this place by his knowledge of the external and internal organisation of insects, and by his acquaintance with their manners and habits.
Latreille was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1814, and was made in 1821 Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. He died at Paris, on the 6th of February 1333, at the age of seventy.