MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 205 



common; but, by so doing, he must have quarrelled 

 with the superintendent of the Jardin du Roi, and must 

 have left the cabinet he had created, and to which he 

 clung as to life. He forgot the affront and the loss, 

 and continued to work as before. 



The regret which every naturalist manifested, when 

 they saw the commencement of the History of Birds 

 appear, without being accompanied with those exact 

 descriptions, and careful anatomical details, which they 

 prized so highly, must have tended to console him. 



He would have had still more reason to be so, if his 

 attachment for the great man who neglected him had 

 not prevailed over his self love, when he saw those first 

 volumes, to which Gueneau of Montbeillard contributed 

 nothing, filled with inaccuracies, and destitute of all 

 those details which it was physically and morally im- 

 possible that Buffon could furnish. 



These imperfections were still more marked in the 

 Supplements, works of Buffon's old age, in which this 

 great writer carries his injustice so far as to devolve 

 on a mere painter the part which Daubenton had so 

 well executed in the first volumes. 



Many naturalists, accordingly, endeavoured to supply 

 this want; and the celebrated Pallas, among others, 

 absolutely took Daubenton for his model in his Miscel- 

 lanea and Spicilegia Zoologica, as well as in his His- 

 toire des Rongeurs, works which ought to be considered 

 as real supplements to Buffon, and as the best which 

 appeared on quadrupeds after his great work. 



