MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. ,207 



indicating, summarily, the principal discoveries with 

 which he enriched certain branches of human know- 

 ledge. 



In Zoology, Daubenton has discovered five species of 

 Bats and one of Sorex, which had escaped the obser- 

 vation of preceding naturalists, although all of them 

 pretty common in France. 



He has given a complete description of the species of 

 Deer which produces musk, and made some curious re- 

 marks on its organization. 



He has described a singular conformation, in the 

 vocal organs of some foreign birds. 



He is the flrst.whc applied the knowledge of com- 

 parative anatomy to the determination of species of 

 quadrupeds whose, remains have been found in a fossil 

 state \ and. although he has not been always fortunate 

 in his conjectures, he has, nevertheless, opened an im- 

 portant career for the history of the revolutions of the 

 globe ; he has destroyed^ for , ever those ridiculous no- 

 tions about giants, which .were^renewed every time the 

 ^ Jxmes of any large animal happened to be disinterred.* 



The most remarkable instance .of his discrimination 

 in this way, was tjie .determination of a bone, which 

 ^vyas preserved at; Garde r meuble, as the bone of a giant's 

 leg. He peroeived, by means of comparative anatomy, 

 that this, was the bone, of a Giraffe, although he had 

 , never seen that animal, and no figure of its skeleton 



* *.JEJi s paper s^on the various subjects referred to, will be 

 found in the Memoires de I' Academic dts Sciences. 



