Bcoiniiiugs of Natural I listoiy in /iDicrica. 381 



and his geographical explorations and maps are of great value. His 

 observations upon the animals and plants are disappointing. He describes 

 the gar-pike and the king-crab, already descri])ed and figured by Harriot 

 many years before, and refers in unmistakable terms to the shearwater, 

 the caribou, the wild turkey, and the scarlet tanager. His lists of ani- 

 mals which occur now and again in tlie course of his narrative are too 

 vague to be of value.' 



Much higher in the esteem of naturalists was Gabriel Sagard Theodat, 

 a Franciscan friar, whose I,e Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, printed 

 in 1632, was the most scholarly work upon America which had yet 

 appeared, and whose History of Canada and of the journeys made by the 

 Franciscans for the conversion of the infidels also contains most valuable 

 records. 



The first work on the plants of North America was that of Cornuti — 

 Canadensium Plantar um, aliarumque nondum editarum historia — printed 

 in Paris in 1635, which described thirty-seven species, thirty-six of these 

 being illustrated by elaborate engravings upon copper. The botanical 

 part of this treatise is usually ascribed to Vespasian Rol)in, and Tucker- 

 man supposes that the local notes, as well as the specimens described, 

 were probably the result of the labors of the worth}^ Franciscan mission- 

 ary, Sagard. - 



A few years later, Pierre Frangois Xavier de Charlevoix [b. 1682, d. 

 1 761], a Jesuit priest, having by royal command traveled through the 

 northern part of North America, published his Histoire et Description 

 Generale de la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1744, which was full of impor- 

 tant biological and ethnological observations, the accuracy of which is 

 not questioned. 



He subsequently traveled in South America, and published in 1760 a 

 work full of statements concerning the animals, plants, and fruits of 

 that country, and also particularly interesting from the account which it 

 gives of the singular Jesuit establishment in Paraguay. 



Other French missionaries, Breboeuf, Du Poisson, Jaques, Joliet, La 

 Chaise, Lallemand, Marquette, Senat, and Souel, followed Charlevoix in 

 the exploration of these regions. Their works contain many valuable 

 notes upon animals and plants. 



Jean Baptiste du Tertre, in his Histoire Generale des Antilles, habitees 

 par lesFrangois, published in Paris in 1667 [ed. 1667-71], described and 

 illustrated many of the New World animals. 



In 1672 Nicolas Denyse published in Paris two comprehensive works 

 upon America, viz : Histoire Naturelle des Peuples, des Animaux des 

 Arbres and Plantes de TAmerique,^ and Description Geographique des 

 Costesde TAmerique Septentrionale, avec I'Histoire Naturelle du Pais.* 



' Publications of Prince vSociety, Boston, 1S7S; Hakluyt Society, XXIV, 1850. 



^Archieologia Americana, IV, p. 119. 



3 Paris, 1672, octavo. •» 1672, duodecimo, 2 vols. 



