200 MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 



did not appear to conform to the laws which he had 

 established. 



However natural this method may appear to those 

 who judge of it simply by good sense, it may easily 

 happen that it cannot be readily followed, since it is so 

 rare in the works of other naturalists, and because there 

 are so few of them, for example, who have taken the 

 trouble of affording us the means of placing the beings 

 they describe, otherwise than they are in their own 

 systems. 



Accordingly, this work of Daubenton's may be con- 

 sidered as a rich mine, in which naturalists and ana- 

 tomists occupied with quadrupeds are obliged to labour, 

 and from which many writers have derived their most 

 valuable materials, without any acknowledgment. It 

 is sometimes enough to make a table of these observa- 

 tions, and to place them uncertain columns, in order to 

 obtain the most striking results ; and it is thus that we 

 must understand the expression of Camper, That Dau- 

 benton did not know all the discoveries of which he 

 was the author. 



He has been blamed for not having himself drawn 

 the picture of these results. It was with a full know- 

 ledge, of course, that he declined a work which would 

 have flattered his self-love, but which might have led 

 him into errors. Nature had shown him too many ex- 

 ceptions, to enable him to believe that he could esta- 

 blish a rule ; and his prudence was justified, not only 

 by the bad success of those who were bolder than him- 



