Francois Huber was a Swiss naturalist. He was born in 1750 and died in 1831. Notwithstanding the loss of his eyesight, he was able, by the help of his wife and his reader and amanuensis, to make observations and deductions which constitute decidedly the most important contribution by any one man to our knowledge of bees. His first work was published in 1792 under the title of Lettres a Ch. Bonnet. Four years after his Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles, practically a new edition, enlarged and amended of the other, appeared. His son Pierre also assisted his father and published important observations on ants. Research Francois Huber
Samuel Butler was a British satirist and poet. He was born in 1612 and died in 1680. He was educated at Worcester free-school, and held various situations as clerk or amanuensis to persons of position, among them being Sir Samuel Luke, a Puritancolonel of Bedfordshire, who is caricatured in the celebrated knight Hudibras. Butler published the first part of Hudibras after the Restoration, in 1663. It became immensely popular, and Charles II himself was perpetually quoting the poem, but did nothing for the author, who seems to have passed the latter part of his life dependent on the support of friends, and died in poverty in London in 1680. A second part of Hudibras appeared in 1664, a third in 1678. The poem is a sort of burlesqueepic ridiculing Puritanism, and fanaticism and hypocrisy generally. Butler was author also of various other pieces, including a satire on the Royal Society entitled the Elephant in the Moon. Research Samuel Butler
 
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert