Biographical Memoir of M. Claude Louis Richard. 209 



in which the most delicate parts were distinctly seen, in which 

 each tegument, pulp, and seed, retained its colour and consist- 

 ence. 



But in the midst of these wild scenes, so rich and so new to 

 him, the plants were not the only objects which were calculated 

 to arrest his attention. The singular birds, the fishes and 

 reptiles of strange and extravagant forms, which presented 

 themselves to his view, rendered him, almost in spite of him- 

 self, a zoologist, and even an anatomist. In that climate, 

 at once moist and scorching, in which the lapse of a few 

 hours changes a dead body into an infectious carcass, he col- 

 lected skins and skeletons of animals, and made drawings 

 and descriptions of their viscera. Among his papers we have 

 seen observations, new for the time, on the organs of voice in 

 birds, and on those of generation and digestion in various qua- 

 drupeds. The sea and rivers had supplied him with the most 

 singular mollusca. He had especially observed with much care, 

 and in the living state, the animals which form and inhabit shells, 

 a class which had until then been almost always neglected, at- 

 tention having been paid only to their briUiant integuments. 



With these treasures he returned to France, after an absence 

 of eight years, and landed at Havre in the spring of 1789. 



Unacquainted as he had remained in the midst of his woods, 

 with all that had taken place during his absence, he doubted 

 not that the most honourable reception would be the reward of 

 his labours : philosophers and ministers, he imagined, would be 

 equally eager to throng around him, the former to learn his dis- 

 covei-ies, the latter to repay the debt of the public. But, as we 

 have just said, this was in 1789. M. de Buffon had died the 

 year before ; his place had been given to a courtier of a gentle 

 and upright character, but without energy, and entirely desti- 

 tute of the knowledge essential to the discharge of such import- 

 ant duties. Thus natural history had no longer a protector ; and, 

 besides, of what importance could the most powerful protection 

 have been in the midst of the embarrassments which on all sides 

 crowded on a government as unskilful as it was unfortunate ? 

 Our poor traveller, with a report from the Academy in his hand, 

 setting forth the extent and importance of his labours, knocked 



