M. Lesson^ s Reply to Mt\ Vigors, 487 



Art. II. Letter to the Editor, in Defence of certain French 

 Naturalists, By M. Lesson. 



Sir, 



Will you have the goodness to insert, in your valuable 

 Journal, the short answer of a stranger, to the voluminous 

 articles of Mr. Vigors in the Zoological Journal? Your 

 readers may possibly blame your indulgence, since they 

 may think these recriminations very tedious. I shall even 

 confess that if an individual of the most honourable feeling, 

 and for whose high talents I have the greatest respect, had 

 not taken up the gauntlet which Mr. Vigors so disdainfully 

 threw down, I should not have done it myself, literally 

 speaking at least, since I should have left the public to form 

 its own judgment upon these attacks, destitute, as they are, 

 of justice and of good feeling. But I cannot refrain from 

 publicly expressing to Mr. Swainson the most lively sense of 

 gratitude for his generous conduct. He has known that the 

 feelings and the reputation of his friend have been wounded 

 by unjust and personal attacks ; and that this friend, a stranger 

 and a foreigner, might be condemned in England, without 

 appeal. But to the question. Indirect attacks by Mr. Vi- 

 gors upon other foreign authors had made me understand the 

 nature of his criticism*, when M. le Baron de Ferussac 

 requested me to give an account of the memoir of Messrs. 

 Horsfield and Vigors upon certain quadrupeds described by 

 these gentlemen as new. This I did, simply by referring to 

 certain descriptions and figures, already published, of these 

 supposed new species. A long and angry reply from Mr. Vi- 

 gors, full of bitterness and personality, immediately appeared 

 in the Zoologicaljournal. (No. xvii. p. 134.) If "the style," 

 as BufFon asserts, " shows the man," I conclude that Mr. Vi- 

 gors is more prolix in his refutations than in his memoirs. 

 How could I have been justified in deceiving the public that 

 these discoveries were new? I should then, indeed, not 

 have offended ; but vitam impendere vero, 



I am accused by Mr. Vigors of jealousy of the naturalists 

 of England ; of ignorance of their labours, &c. Now, it is to 

 this that I must answer. I have for many years travelled in 

 the foreign colonies and possessions of Britain, and there 

 learned to appreciate the character of the nation. So far 

 back as 1825, I translated into French the Zoological and Bo- 

 tanical Memoirs of Dr. Horsfield, which had been published 

 in Java. I receive all the monthly scientific publications of 



* In the original, vi'avaie7it donne la mesure de sa critique. 

 I I 4 



