CH. xxv. EARLY LIFE OF LINNMUS. 205 



know more about natural history and the habits and lives 

 of animals. He was also the first to trace out with any care 

 the way in which animals are distributed over different parts 

 of the globe ; how they are checked by climate, by 

 mountains, by rivers, and by seas from wandering out of 

 their own regions, and how they are more widely spread 

 over cold countries than over warm ones, because they are 

 able to cross the seas and rivers upon solid or floating ice, 

 and so get from one region to another. 



In this general way Buffon gathered together a great 

 many interesting facts about animals. His works were all 

 the more popular because he disliked anything like classi- 

 fication. He would not attempt to group the animals after 

 any particular method, but liked to describe each one with 

 a little history of its own, and to write on freely without any 

 very great scientific accuracy. Of course the consequence 

 was that he often made great mistakes, and arrived at false 

 conclusions ; still he had so much genius and knowledge 

 that a great part of his work will always remain true, and 

 Natural History owes a great deal to Buffon. He died in 

 1 788, in the eighty-first year of his age, and twenty thousand 

 people assembled to do him honour at his funeral. 



Life and Influence of Linnseus, 1707-1778. We r 

 must now turn to Linnaeus, whose whole life and labours 

 were as different from those of Buffon as his birth and early 

 life had been. Buffon hated to be bound down to exact 

 details ; Linnaeus found his greatest pleasure in tracing out 

 each minute character in plants and animals so accurately as . 

 to be able to build up a complete classification, by which / 

 any one could tell at once to what part of the animal or| 

 vegetable kingdom any living being belonged. While Buf- 

 fon's books were entertaining and readable, Linnaeus's were 

 often hard dry science, consisting chiefly of long accurate 



