592 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



the museums introduce an element of nationalism, sometimes of nationalist riv- 

 alry, adds interest to the story. 



The Era of Dumeril and Bibron 



A major summary of the field of herpetology, in ten volumes, marks the end 

 of the first half of the nineteenth century. This is tlie Erpetologie generale ou 

 Mstoire naturelle complete des reptiles, by Andre Marie Constant Dumeril 

 (b. 1764, d. 1860) and Gabriel Bibron (b. 1806, d. 1848), based largely on the 

 collections accumulated at the J\Iuseum of Natural History in Paris. The first 

 volume of this work appeared in 1934, and the last in 1854; after the death of 

 Bibron in 1848, A. H. A. Dumeril, the son of the senior author, aided with vol- 

 umes 7 and 9. The tenth volume is an atlas of 120 colored plates. This work, 

 still much referred to, gives a comprehensive scientific account of the reptiles in 

 general (including the amphibians as the distinct order Batrachia), as to their 

 structure and physiology as well as their systematics, together with an historical 

 account of the literature of the subject, and this is supplemented by a general 

 account for each of the principal orders recognized. One hundred and twenty- 

 one species of turtles, 468 lizards (with which are included the crocodilians), 586 

 snakes, and 218 "batrachians" are described. The classification of the snakes 

 foreshadows the more modern ones of Cope and Boulenger in being based on 

 dentition; five equivalent groups are recognized, the Opoterodontes, the Aglypho- 

 dontes, the Opisthoglyphes, the Proteroglyphes, and the Solenoglyphes. The last 

 four terms were to become current herpetological property, useful even when 

 their systematic importance was seen to be less than at first thought. The work 

 greatly multiplied the number of known families of snakes, recognizing no less 

 than twenty for the nonvenomous forms. 



The Erpetologie generale was the crowning work of a century of herpeto- 

 logical studies, during most of which the leadership in the field had lain with 

 the French. Earlier comprehensive treatments of the amphibians and reptiles 

 had been supplied by the various editions of the Histoire naturelle of Buffon and 

 the Regne animal of Cuvier. As a summary of what was known of the herpetology 

 of the world in 1850, the Erpetologie remains a work of major importance. A 

 direct line of succession of herpetologists at the Museum National d'Histoire 

 Naturelle at Paris carries on from Constant and Auguste Dumeril through Leon 

 Vaillant, P. Mocquard, and Fernand Angel (who died in 1950), to Jean Guibe. 

 The most notable achievement of these generations was the herpetological explora- 

 tion and description of the French colonies, especially of the great and remark- 

 able island of Madagascar. 



The Dumerils were not left unaided at the National Museum in Paris after 

 the death of Bibron. Marie-Firmin Boeourt, who came to the museum as pre- 

 parateur in 1834 at the age of fifteen, became a competent herpetological artist 

 as well as field collector. His first expedition was to Siam in 1861-1862; in 1864 

 he was placed in charge of the Mission Scientifique au Mexique et dans I'Amerique 

 Central, an adjunct to the attempt of Napoleon III to establish a Mexican empire 

 under the ill-fated Maximilian. The failure of the Mexican venture sent Boeourt 

 to Guatemala and other parts of Central America. After his return in 1867 he 

 devoted himself to the report on his collections of reptiles, and more especially 



