138 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



ness in the study of details. In America he was perhaps the 

 first of that school of systematic zoology which regards no 

 fact as so unimportant that it need not be correctly ascertained 

 and stated a method of work with which has been rightly 

 associated the name of Prof. Spencer F. Baird. This attention 

 to accuracy in detail marks the so-called " Bairdian epoch " in 

 vertebrate zoology. 



When Lesueur left France for America, Ord relates, he 

 placed all his disposable means, including his pension, in the 

 hands of his father. The latter dying four years later, these 

 affairs were entrusted to an attorney, " it being his intention 

 to create a fund, to which he might have recourse in case of 

 need. It does not appear that he gave himself much concern 

 with respect to this agency, and on his return. to Paris he had 

 the mortification to find that the agent had betrayed his confi- 

 dence by appropriating to the use of his own family the entire 

 fund, which amounted to the sum of forty thousand francs- 

 The feelings of Lesueur were sorely tried at this event, and the 

 wrong was the more galling, as it was perpetrated under the 

 guise of friendship. Notwithstanding this heavy loss, at a time 

 of life, too, when the infirmities of age began to be felt, he had 

 still a remnant left, the produce of his industry, which modicum 

 he shared with a brother whose necessities were greater than 

 his own." 



In the latter part of 1838 Mr. George Ord visited him in 

 Paris, whither he had brought a valuable collection of speci- 

 mens of natural history from the United States, and all the 

 drawings and manuscripts resulting from his various travels. 

 " Perhaps no individual then living," said Mr. Ord in his 

 memoir, " possessed a greater fund of materials for works of 

 the highest interest in natural history materials destined in a 

 great measure, it is feared, to be useless, for the want of that 

 mind which alone could direct their application." 



"Some time in the year 1843, "Ord continues, "the project 

 of founding a museum of natural history in the city of Havre 

 was set on foot, and Mr. Lesueur, who had taken a great in- 

 terest in the measure, was looked to as one eminently capable 

 of filling an important office in an establishment which was in- 

 debted to his personal exertions for much of its favour with the 

 community. In 1845 he was chosen curator of the museum, 

 and he removed to Havre in order to superintend the building, 



