made in the Coquille by M. Duperrey. 365° 
possess respecting various parts of the vast countries traversed 
by the expedition ; and that they furnish us with new and im-. 
portant documents relative to many points which had not be- 
fore been ascertained. 
Zoology *. 
Captain Duperrey, M. Durville, second-in-command, and 
MM. Lesson and Garnot, medical officers, who were parti- 
cularly occupied in zoological researches during the voyage, 
have hastened to lay before us all the subjects which they have 
collected, as well as the journals and registers containing their 
observations. Several of our colleagues of the Museum of Na- 
tural History have examined these fine collections along with 
us; M. Valenciennes, a naturalist of this establishment, has 
- prepared a catalogue of the vertebrated animals, mollusca, and 
zoophytes which form part of them; and M. Latreille took 
upon himself the department of the insects, crustacea, and the 
arachnides. From these materials the account which we shall 
give is prepared. It was natural that we should state it, not 
merely to acknowledge our gratitude to those who have assist- 
ed us, but also to call in to the aid of our judgement the au- 
thority which they possess. 
In the first place we must speak of the good state of pre- 
servation in which these collections have arrived : it isa merit 
of the highest importance in Natural History, and one which 
raises the expeditions of later times incalculably above those 
which have preceded them. 
Experienced naturalists know that repeated observations 
and accurate comparisons alone can verify the species of an 
organized being; and when the beginning has not been thus 
made, all that can be said of this being, of its manners, of its 
uses, or of the peculiarities of its organization, remain without 
‘any basis. The works also which now give the most vexation 
to naturalists, those which put them sometimes to a sort of tor- 
ture, are those of travellers who have been obliged, by the cir- 
cumstances under which they were, to make all their observa- 
tions during their route, without bringing back or depositing in 
a known cabinet the objects which they observed. The most 
laboured descriptions, figures apparently the best-executed, 
when the objects themselves do not accompany them, are far 
from being always in a state to satisfy this first want of the 
science. ‘it happens perpetually, that next in order to a spe- 
cies which was thought well defined by a certain number of 
characters, there comes another which has the same characters 
with the first, and which is only distinguished by some features 
* This article of the Report relative to Zoology, was furnished by M. 
Cuvier. 
hardly 
