18 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
command of the Dutch armament, which sub- 
sequently dispossessed the crown of Portugal of 
nearly all its Brazilian possessions, took with him, 
as if anticipating victory and subsequent ease, a 
young and enthusiastic naturalist, whom we now 
look on as the venerable Marcgrave, the father 
of Brazilian zoology. Not content with his aid, 
the count employed artists and botanists to draw, 
and collect, and preserve, every thing that might 
interest the naturalists of Europe. To this mu- 
nificent patron was the learning of the seven- 
teenth century indebted for the first account, ever 
published, of the natural history of tropical 
America. Considering the then state of science, 
Marcgrave’s work, written probably when he was 
not more than twenty-five, abounds with a vast mass 
of new and original information, very different from 
what was to be found in the crude and verbose com- 
pilations of this period. Unfortunately, however, 
Marcgrave lived not to arrange and digest these 
materials, as he no doubt would have done had he 
returned to Europe. Anxious to extend his dis- 
coveries, he accompanied one of the bold expeditions 
of his patron to attack the Portuguese possessions 
on the coast of Guinea, where he fell a victim to the 
climate at the early age of thirty-four. His original 
MSS.,and a collection of drawings chiefly of the rare 
fishes of Brazil, made by his accomplished patron, 
are said to be preserved in the Royal Library of 
Berlin. His work on Brazil was published, with 
those of Piso and Bontius on India, in 1768. Mare- 
grave had talents of a very high order; for, besides 
his zoological and botanical labours, he wrote on 
