The Bcginnins^s of\lnicrican Science. 449 



by Peron ' and Freycinet ' were all his. He was called the Raffaelle of 

 zoological painters, and his removal to America in 1815 was greatly 

 deplored by European naturalists. He traveled for three years with 

 Maclure, exploring the West Indies and the eastern United States, mak- 

 ing a magnificent collection of drawings of fishes and invertebrates, and 

 in 18 iS settled in Philadelphia, where, supporting himself by giving 

 drawing lessons, he became an active member of the Academy of Sciences 

 and published man}' papers in its Journal. 



No one ever drew such exquisite figures of fishes as Lesueur, and it is 

 greatly to be regretted that he never completed his projected work upon 

 North American Ichthyology. He issued a prospectus, with specimen 

 plates, of a ]\Iemoir on the Medusoe, and his name will always be 

 associated with the earliest American work upon marine invertebrates 

 and invertebrate paleontology, because it was to him that Say undoubt- 

 edl\- owed his first acquaintance with these departments of zoolog3\ In 

 1820, while at Albany in the service of the United States and Canadian 

 Boundary Conunission, he gave lessons to Eaton and identified his fossils, 

 thus laying the foundations for the future work of the rising school of 

 New York paleontologists. 



Twelve years of his life were wasted at New Harmony, and in 1837, 

 after the death of Say, he returned to France, carrying his collections 

 and drawings to the Natural History Museum at Havre, of which he 

 became curator. His period of productiveness was limited to the six 

 3'ears of his residence in Philadelphia. But for their sacrifice to the 

 socialistic ideas of Owen, Say and Lesueur would doubtless be counted 

 among the most distinguished of our naturalists, and the course of Amer- 

 ican zoological research would have been entirely different. 



The Reverend Daniel H. Barnes [b. 1785, d. 1828] , of New York, a grad- 

 uate of Union College and a Baptist preacher, was one of Say's earliest 

 disciples, and from 1823 he published papers on conchology, beginning 

 with an elaborate study of the fresh-water mussels. This group was 

 taken up in 1827 by Doctor Isaac Eea, and discussed from year to year 

 in his well-known series of beautifully illustrated monographs. 



Mr. Barnes published, also, papers on the Classification of the Chi- 

 tonidae, on Batrachian Animals and doubtful Reptiles, and on Magnetic 

 Polarity. 



The officers of the Navy had alreadj^ begun their contributions to natu- 

 ral history which have been so serviceable in later years. One of the 

 earliest contributions by Barnes was a description of five species of Chitoi, 

 collected in Peru by Captain C. S. Ridgely of the Constellation . 



In this period (1828+) was begun the publication of Audubon's folio 

 volumes of illustrations of North American birds — a most extraordinary 



' Voyage des Decouvertes aux Terres Australes. 

 - Voyage aux Terres Australes, Paris, 1807. 

 NAT MUS 97, PT 2 29 



