FABRY Jean Henri (Fabre Jean Henri)

(1823-1915)
Born December 22, 1823 in Saint-Leone. After School Teacher (1842) worked as a schoolteacher. From 1849 he taught at the Lyceum Ajaccio (o.Korsika). In 1852 he became a professor of physics and chemistry in high school Avignon. In 1871, was suspended from teaching and settled in a small house on the outskirts of Orange. When Fabre was already 55 years old, he finally bought a plot of land in the small village Serinyan du Comte in Provence, about 80 km from the coast. Fabre has turned this land into a real field laboratory for studying the life of insects.
In 1878, scientists began to publish the results of studies bees kamenschits digging wasps, caterpillars marching pine moth, praying mantis, butterfly of Psyche, and many other insects. In the same year was published the first volume of entomology memoirs (Souvenirs Entomologiques). Before I was born in the last 10-second volume of this work, it took almost thirty years. Some of his research, such as scarab beetles, lasted about 40 years. Initially, the book Fabre did not attract wide public attention, although Victor Hugo, and called it 'Homer insects', and Charles Darwin spoke of him as 'inimitable spectator'. Only with the release of the last volume of memoirs entomological Fabre received recognition in the scientific world. Entomological recollections were awarded the special prize of the Institute of France.

The principal novelty of the contribution Fabra in entomology was the fact that the objects of research are living beings, whereas previously the main source of knowledge in this science were dead specimens pinned on a pin. 'Emptiness', in which Fabre made his discovery and called it 'Paradise', has received worldwide fame and is now under the protection of the Museum of Natural History. Died Fabre in Serinyan du Comte October 11, 1915.