xliv JOURNAL OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS 



Barrier Reef). Turning northwards he sailed, by the Louisiade Archi- 

 pelago and New Guinea, to the Moluccas, returning to France in 1769 

 via Batavia and Mauritius. 



Bougainville was accompanied on this voyage by a naturalist, 

 Philibert Commerson, whose servant, Jean Bary, passed for a man until 

 her sex was recognised by the Tahitians. Otourrou, a Tahitian whom 

 Bougainville took with him to France, died of small-pox at Mada- 

 gascar while being conveyed back to his native country. The genus 

 Bougainvillea was so named by Commerson in honour of the navigator, 

 who was the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe. Bougain- 

 ville afterwards commanded various vessels in the American War. 



BRISSON, Mathurin Jacques (1723-1806), French naturalist and 

 physicist, author of "Le regne animal" (1756), and " Ornithologie " 

 (1760), and various works on physics. 



BROSSE or BROSSES, Charles de (1709-77), first President of the 

 Parliament of Burgundy, author of "Histoire des Navigations aux 

 Terres Australes " (1756). 



BROWNE, Patrick (1720?-! 790), a physician who studied natural 

 history, more particularly botany, and after a voyage to the West 

 Indies published the "Civil and Natural History of Jamaica" (1756). 

 He also compiled more or less local catalogues of birds, fishes, and 

 plants. 



BUFPON, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de (1707-88), French 

 naturalist and writer. Upon being appointed Director of the King's 

 Garden at Paris, in 1739, he conceived the idea of compiling a natural 

 history of creation, and devoted the following fifty years of his life to 

 carrying out this project, with the help of other naturalists. His 

 "Histoire naturelle" (published at various periods from 1749 to 1788) 

 treats of the theory of the earth, nature of animals, man, viviparous 

 quadrupeds, birds, and minerals. The task was continued after his 

 death by Lacepede. 



BYRON, Vice- Admiral John (1723-86), was the second son of the 

 fourth Lord Byron, and grandfather of the poet. He accompanied 

 Anson on his voyage to the Pacific as a midshipman on board the 

 Wager, which was wrecked on the coast of Chile in 1741 : some years 

 later he published the details of his adventures (1768). In 1764 he 

 was appointed to the Dolphin, with orders to explore the South Seas. 

 He left England in company with the Tamar, and, passing through 

 the Straits of Magellan, stood across the Pacific, but following a 

 course already known, made no discoveries of any importance. With 

 a great deal of scurvy on board he reached the Ladrones, and returned 

 home in 1766. [Otahite was rediscovered on the Dolphin's second 



