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 i}rst,whc applied the knowledge of com- 

 parative Anatomy to the determination of species of 

 quadrupeds whose, remains have been found in a fossil 

 state \ anxl 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 destroy ed H for, ever those ridiculous no- 

 tions about giants, which ;were u renewed every time the 



Jxmes of any large animal happened to be disinterred.* 



The most remarkable instance , of his discrimination 



in this way, was the /determination of a bone, which 



; w was preserved ai r Garde : meuble, as the bone of a giant's 



;leg. He perceived, by means of comparative anatomy, 

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



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



* JEJis papers jOn the various subjects referred to, will be 

 found in the Memoires de V Academic des Sciences. 



