338 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



Abbe Bexon, -who prepared the materials from which 

 Buffon constructed his great work. But even in these 

 preparatory labours, they were guided by Buffon, who 

 never shrank from devoting himself to the study of 

 details which other observers might have thought un- 

 worthy of their notice. 



Buffon, as M. Flourens has well observed, was in- 

 fluenced by two leading passions, that of work, and that 

 of fame. Being convinced, however, that the one leads 

 infallibly to the other, he worked for twelve or fourteen 

 hours daily. He generally passed four months of the 

 year at Paris, and the remaining eight on his property 

 at Montbard. Here, in a high tower erected in the 

 midst of fields and woods, he composed his great His- 

 toire Naturelle.* This work, the fruit .of fifty years' in- 

 cessant study, was published in several parts, and hence 



the Mammalia was published by Buffon without any of these 

 anatomical notices, in consequence of which Daubenton refused to 

 continue his labours for his illustrious master, and soon published 

 in his own name a great number of memoirs on Zoology, properly 

 so called, and on its applications to rural economy. We also owe 

 to him the introduction into France of the merino sheep, which had 

 been vainly attempted by Colbert ; but his principal title to glory 

 rests upon the fact, that his researches in comparative anatomy 

 made him rank as the precursor of Cuvier in this branch of science. 

 Daubenton was a professor at the Jardin des Plantes, and at the 

 School of Medicine. 



* Histoire Naturette, Generale et Particuliere, avec la description 

 du Cabinet du roi ; such is the title of this immortal work. The 

 first, which is also the best of all the editions, appeared between 

 1749 and 1789, consisting of thirty-six quarto volumes. Since then 

 the Histoire Naturelle has been very frequently re-edited, sometimes 

 in the most deplorable manner, as for instance by Sonnini, who, by 

 transposing different parts, entirely destroyed the sequence of the 

 ideas, and prevented the reader from following out the views of the 

 author in their full development. (See Histoire des Travaux et des 

 Idees de Buffon, by M. Flourens.) 



