TASMANIAN RELICS IN THE HAVRE MUSEUM. 



By Charles Hedley. 



(Commuuictited by E. L. Piesso.) 



(Read 14th September, 1914.) 



At the initiative of the Institute of France, the Govern- 

 ment of the day despatched a scientific exploring expedi- 

 tion to Australasia. Under the command of Capt. Nicholas 

 Baudin, two vessels, the " Geograplie " and the "Nattiral- 

 iste," left Havre on the 19th October, 1800. After a voy- 

 age of twenty thousand leagues the survivors arrived at 

 Lorient, 25th March, 1814. The mortality on these ships, 

 probably from scurvy, was frightful. The commander and 

 a considerable number of his officers died on the voyage, 

 while others were invalided at Mauritius. 



Never before had the scientific staff and equipment been 

 equalled ; the expedition was especially fortunate in its 

 historian, the gifted Francois Peroii, who, poor fellow, lived 

 just long enough to hand the manuscript of his book to his 

 faithful friend Louis Freycinet. 



The extensive and valuable collections procured by this 

 expedition furnished material for the chief scientific 

 authorities in France to work upon. For several decades 

 Cuvier, Valenciennes, Lamarck, Blainville, Dumeril, and 

 others continued to publish novelties discovered by Bau 

 din's expedition. Perhaps it was on account of political 

 disturbance that the scientific results were not issued as 

 a whole, but merely written up piecemeal. 



Though the biological collections were transferred to the 

 Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, yet a considerable body 

 of notes, descriptions and drawings, seem to have been re- 

 turned to the survivors of the scientific staff. We are 

 told that Petit and Milbert, two of the artists of the ex- 

 pedition, privately disposed of a niimber of drawings of 

 Tasmanian natives. 



The drawings of Charles Alexander Lcsucur, an accom- 

 plished ai-tist of this expedition, were ultimately acqviired 

 by the Havre Museum. A list of these has been published 

 by Dr. G. Lennier,* from which may be mentioned fifteen 

 sketches of canoes and utensils, another fifteen of scenes 



" Lenniev.— Bull. Sue. ZuoL, Francf, VIII., 1SS3, p. 9. 



