Mark Eleazar Blocb, of Berlin. Si 



he ^turned to Berlin and made himfelf known to M. Mar- 

 tini, bv whofe means he was elefted a member of the Society 

 of the Friends of Nature. 



M. Bloch, in order that he might promote the objefts of 

 that inftitiition, undertook a natural hiilory of the Mursena, 

 a fifli caught only in the lakes of Pomerania. He began to 

 form a cabinet of natural hiftory; and having made a con- 

 liderable colleftion of aquatic animals frorn all parts of the 

 globe, he refolved to write a natural hiftOry of fifties. He 

 caufed drawinffs to be made and engravings to be executed 



O DO 



from them with great correftnefs. By a fortunate accident 

 he procured the original manufcripts of Father Plumier, at 

 the fale of one of thofe Frenchmen who came to Branden- 

 bourg at the time when Frederic \l. eltabliflied the admi- 

 nillration of excife. Father Plumier, of the order of the 

 Minims, had made three voyages to America, and always 

 brought back many interefting objefts. Though he pub- 

 li{hed nothing but on botany, if we except the art of turning, 

 it is well known that he wrote a great deal on birds and fifties; 

 but no one could tell what had become of thcfe manufcripts : 

 and it is flill unknown in what manner they came into the 

 hands of the above Frenchman, from whom they pafl'ed into 

 thofeofM. Bloch. 



This naturalill firfl; publiftied, in German, four numbers 

 of an Economical Natural Hiftory of Fifties, particularly 

 thofe in the States of Pruflia, with figures from original 

 drawings: Berlin, 1781 and 1782; large quarto. In the 

 following years he gave an Economical Natural Hiftory of 

 the Fifties of Germany, in three volumes, confifting of 108 

 plates, and in which the three numbers above mentioned 

 were infcrted. He publiftied afterwards, in nine volumes, 

 the Natural Hiftory of Foreign Fifties; fo that his whole 

 work, confifting of twelve volumes, contains 432 plates. 

 The laft appeared in 1795. He caufed alfo to be made, at 

 his own expence, by C. Laveaux, then at Btrlin, a French 

 tranflation of his work, which he publiftied under the title of 

 liijto'ire generale et parttctiliere des Po'iffbns, Berlin 1785 — 

 1788 ; fix volumes folio, with 216 plates. It may be readily 

 conceived that the expence of fuch a work muft have bct.-ii 



Vol. N"1. xM f-onfiderabJcj 



