One day, when a new servant was installed in the house, she immediately proceeded to display her zeal by "putting things to-rights." Abauzit's study, amongst other rooms, was made tidy and set in order.

When he entered it, he asked of the servant, "What have you done with the paper that was round the barometer ?" "Oh, sir," was the reply, "it was so dirty that I burnt it, and put in its place this paper, which you will see is quite new." Abauzit crossed his arms, and after some moments of internal struggle, he said, in a tone of calmness and resignation: "You have destroyed the results of twenty-seven years labour; in future touch nothing whatever in this room." The study of natural history more than that of any other branch of science, seems to be accompanied by unusual cheerfulness and equanimity of temper on the part of its votaries; the result of which is, that the life of naturalists is on the whole more prolonged than that of any other class of men of science.

A member of the Linnaean Society has informed us that of fourteen members who died in 1870, two were over ninety, five were over eighty, and two were over seventy.

The average age of all the members who died in that year was seventy-five.
Adanson, the French botanist, was about seventy years old when the Revolution broke out, and amidst the shock he lost everything--his fortune, his places, and his gardens.

But his patience, courage, and resignation never forsook him.