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 

 iiot 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. Marc- 

 grave had talents of a very high order; for, besides 

 his zoological and botanical labours, he wrote on 



