4 M. Flourens's Historical Eloge on 



But a labour of another kind, and, unquestionably, both the 

 most important and original, with which M. F. Cuvier engaged, 

 was his observations upon the instinct and intelligence of ani- 

 mals ; observations which interested the philosopher not less 

 than the naturalist, and to which he devoted thirty years of con- 

 secutive and conscientious study. In connection with this, it 

 should be remarked, that, in the year 1804, M. F. Cuvier was 

 intrusted with the immediate direction of the Menagerie of 

 the museum of natural history ; and no situation could possi- 

 bly have been more favourable for the study of the faculties 

 and the actions of animals. At the same time, no naturalist 

 could have done more for this subject of inquiry than did M. 

 F. Cuvier. 



The ancients were in the habit of forming great collections 

 of wild beasts ; but it was only to exhibit them in the public 

 games. When the menagerie was established at Versailles a 

 different and nobler object was contemplated ; for it was in- 

 tended that the animals which were there congregated should 

 subserve the purposes of science. It was from the menagerie 

 of Versailles that Perrault and Duvernoy derived the first 

 materials of that edifice of comparative anatomy, which, begun 

 twenty centuries before by Aristotle, was by them recom- 

 menced upon a new foundation, and has been since raised to 

 a lofty elevation by the successive labours of Daubenton, Cam- 

 per, Vicq d'Azyr, and George Cuvier. 



In the year 1794, when the menagerie of Versailles was 

 transported to Paris, and connected with the Jardin des 

 Plantes, it became still more useful. At that time three cele- 

 brated naturalists, George Cuvier, Laeepede, and M. Geoffroy 

 St Hilaire, combined in publishing, under the title of Mena- 

 gerie da Museum National, the first work in which French 

 naturalists exhibited their zeal to maintain in natural history 

 the admirable method of Buffon, which, till then, had been 

 imitated only by a single foreign naturalist, namely, the ce- 

 lebrated Pallas. Finally, when the menagerie of Versailles, 

 now become the menagerie of the museum, was intrusted in 

 the year 1804 to M. F. Cuvier, he speedily elicited from it 

 new sources of usefulness. First of all, after the example of 

 the three naturalists I have just named, he continued the po- 



