The study and arrangement of these treasures had become in him a true passion, the only one, perhaps, that was ever remarked in him. He shut himself up, for entire days, in the Cabinet. He reviewed, in a thousand ways, the objects he had assembled there; he scrupulously examined all their parts; he tried all possible orders, until he fell upon that which neither offended the eye nor did violence to the natural relations.

This taste for the arrangement of a cabinet showed itself very strongly in his latter years, when victories brought to the Museum of Natural History a new mass of riches, and when circumstances admitted of giving a greater development to the whole. At eighty-four years of age, his head sunk upon his breast, his feet and hands disfigured by gout, not able to walk unless supported by two people, he caused himself to be led every morning to the cabinet, in order to preside over the arrangement of the minerals, the only part which remained in his hands in the new organization of the establishment.

Thus, it is principally to Daubenton that France is indebted for that temple, so worthy of the goddess to whom it is dedicated; and in which we know not what to admire most, the astonishing fecundity of Nature, which produced so many living beings, or the indefatigable patience of the individual who could collect all these beings, name them, classify them, point out their relations, describe their parts, and explain their properties.

The second monument Daubenton left behind him ought to have been, according to his primitive plan, the result and complete description of this cabinet; but circumstances to which we shall soon refer, prevented him carrying his description further than the quadrupeds.

This is not the place to analyze the descriptive part of the Natural History,* a work as immense in its details as it is astonishing from the boldness of its plan, nor to point out all that it contains new and important for naturalists. It will be sufficient to give an idea of it, to mention, that it contains the description, exterior as well as interior, of a hundred and eighty-two species of quadrupeds, fifty-two of which had never before been dissected, and thirteen of which had not even been described externally. It also contains the description, exterior only, of twenty-six species, five of which were not known. The number of species entirely new is therefore eighteen; but the new facts, relating to such as were already known more or less superficially, are innumerable. The greatest merit of the work, however, is the order and spirit in which these descriptions are drawn up, and which is the same in regard to all the species. The author is pleased to repeat, that he was the first who had established a comparative anatomy; and that was true in this sense, that all his observations were arranged on the same plan, and their number being the same for the smallest animal and the largest, it is extremely easy to seize all the relations; not being confined to any system, he has bestowed equal attention on all the facts; and he never could be tempted to neglect or disguise what did not appear to conform to the laws which he had established.

* The three first volumes in 4to appeared in 1749; the twelve following succeeded each other from that period up to 1767.

However natural this method may appear to those who judge of it simply by good sense, it may easily happen that it cannot be readily followed, since it is so rare in the works of other naturalists, and because there are so few of them, for example, who have taken the trouble of affording us the means of placing the beings they describe, otherwise than they are in their own systems.

Accordingly, this work of Daubenton's may be considered as a rich mine, in which naturalists and anatomists occupied with quadrupeds are obliged to labour, and from which many writers have derived their most valuable materials, without any acknowledgment. It is sometimes enough to make a table of these observations, and to place them uncertain columns, in order to obtain the most striking results; and it is thus that we must understand the expression of Camper, That Dau-benton did not know all the discoveries of which he was the author.

He has been blamed for not having himself drawn the picture of these results. It was with a full knowledge, of course, that he declined a work which would have flattered his self-love, but which might have led him into errors. Nature had shown him too many exceptions, to enable him to believe that he could establish a rule; and his prudence was justified, not only by the bad success of those who were bolder than himself, but also by his own example; the only rule he had ventured to establish, that of the number of cervical vertebrae in quadrupeds, having been disproved towards the close of his life.*

He has also been blamed for having restricted his anatomical investigations, limiting them to the description of the skeleton and viscera, without treating of the muscles, vessels, nerves, and exterior organs of the senses : but it cannot be proved that it was possible for him to avoid this accusation, until we have done better than he, in the same time, and with the same means. It is certain at least, that one of his pupils, who wished to supply these defects, has, for the most part, given us nothing but compilations, too often insignificant.

Accordingly, as soon as his great work appeared, Daubenton did not fail to obtain the usual recompense of all great undertakings; glory and honour; criticism and irritability; for, in the career of the sciences, as in all others, it is less difficult to attain to glory and even fortune, than to preserve tranquillity when one has attained to them.

Reaumer at that time held the sceptre of Natural History. No one had shown greater sagacity in observation,, no one had rendered Nature more interesting by the wisdom and species of foresight of details, the proofs of which he had found in the history of the smallest animals. His memoirs on insects, although diffuse, were clear, elegant, and full of that interest which arises from the curiosity being continually kept on the stretch by new and singular details. They had begun to diffuse among people of the world a taste for the study of Nature.