208 Biographical Memoir of M. Claude Louis Richard. 



perienced under the former governor, he consoled himself by 

 researches in pure natural history. The rural habits of his old 

 trade enabled him to make excursions which would have fright- 

 ened cabinet naturalists. An excellent hunter and marksman, 

 he dreaded neither the thickest forests nor the most unhealthy 

 marshes. Twice his dogs were devoured by those enormous 

 serpents which from the trees lie in wait for animals, and even 

 sometimes cast themselves upon men. He had, in particular, a 

 talent for gaining the friendship and confidence of the savages. 

 They assisted him in his huntings, admitted him into their 

 dwellings, and did not conceal from him their most secret prac- 

 tices. He thus discovered, that if they had long been con- 

 sidered beardless, and if numerous and absurd tlieories have 

 been founded on this error, it is merely because they pluck out, 

 with superstitious care, the slightest germ of hair as soon as it 

 makes its appearance. For this purpose, instead of pincers, 

 they employ the valves of a particular kind of mussel. 



These prolonged excursions, together with those which he 

 made to Brazil and the Antilles, procured for M. Richard ex- 

 tensive collections in the three kingdoms of nature. His herba- 

 rium was remarkable, not only for its beautiful preservation, but 

 for the care which he had taken to join to it drawings from nature 

 of all the details of the flower and of the fruit. Nothing could 

 be more valuable, nor even at the present day is any thing more 

 so, than this series of drawings. TravelUng botanists had too 

 long given only superficial descriptions of plants. Since the 

 time of Linnaeus, more attention had been paid to the sexual 

 organs ; but the relative position of the parts, the attachment of 

 the seed in the interior of the fruit, and the interior of the seed 

 itself, were neglected; and in plants which could not easUy be 

 procured in Europe, there was no means of supplying the de- 

 ficiency. Herbaria and dried fruits afforded but uncertain or 

 insufficient information. Of this deficiency in the science, M. 

 Richard had been sensible, since he had attended the lectures 

 of Bernard de Jussieu, and he had determined to supply it. 

 Thus, at the same lime when Gaertner was with so much assi- 

 duity labouring in his cabinet, at his celebrated Carpology, our 

 botanist, in a more favourable situation, was describing and 

 di*awing in the woods and savannahs of Cayenne the fresh fruits. 



