Cuvier as a Naturalist. 345 



As the animals of the class Vermes, which Linnaeus had ar- 

 ranged in such a singular manner, were most accessible to him 

 in his present situation, it was on these that he resolved to make 

 the first trial ; but before publishing any thing on the subject, he 

 wished to consult the most renowned scientific men of the time, 

 and opened a correspondence with some of them through a 

 member of the old Academy whom he met at Valmont, at whose 

 desire he had been induced to dehver a course of lectures on 

 botany to some amateurs in Natural History. MM. Millin, 

 Lacepede, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire invited him to Paris. He 

 went thither in 1795 ; and the lectures which he dehvered to the 

 Philomathic and Natural History Societies, various memoirs on 

 the anatomy of the mollusca, insects, and zoophytes, together 

 with a sketch of the advantages and best method of forming a 

 system in natural history, placed him in the first rank of na- 

 turalists, and caused him to be nominated a member of the So- 

 ciety of Arts, professor to the central school of the Pantheon, 

 and soon afterwards member of the Institute, and assistant to 

 the professor of comparative anatomy in the museum of natural 

 history. 



Placed in the centre of this vast establishment, and having 

 the objects which it contained at his disposal, his genius was dis- 

 played in a manner proportionate to his means of investigation. 



Still pursuing the anatomy of the mollusca, he published the 

 result of his labours in a series of monographs, which will ever 

 form a model of clear and precise description, learning and lite- 

 rary criticism, while they shew his singular skill in the art of 

 drawing and making anatomical preparations.* He extended 

 his researches to other invertebrate animals, and, in 1796, made 

 known to the world his beautiful discovery of the circulation 

 and red colour of the blood in leeches and other annelides. In 

 1797, he read his celebrated memoir on the nutrition of insects, 



nor by instinct, could conduct to their arrangement ; and that which Linnseus 

 adopted, corresponded less with nature than that which was before proposed 

 by Aristotle. 



• M. Cuvier, from memory, sketched all natural objects with the greatest 

 rapidity, depicting their general characters, and the relative proportions of their 

 parts, with an accuracy that excited the admiration of all his auditors, as upon 

 a black board he made a figure to appear rather as if it were by magic, than 

 by tracing it w:ith chalk. 



