CH. XXV. BUFFON'S NATURAL HISTORY. 205 



in Paris, and partly on his estate in Burgundy. Linnaeus 

 was taught in a small grammar-school, where he showed so 

 little taste for books that his father would have apprenticed 

 him to a shoemaker if a physician named Rothmann, who saw 

 the boy's love of antural history, had not taken him into 

 his own house and taught him botany and physiology. At 

 one-and-twenty, when Buffon came into his fortune, the 

 young Linnaeus, with an allowance of eight pounds a year 

 from his father, was a struggling student at the University of 

 Upsala, putting folded paper into the soles of his old shoes 

 to keep out the damp and cold. 



Buffon's work on Natural History: lie traces the 

 Distribution of Animals. — Buffon's private life is not 

 interesting. He was a vain man, and not a moral one ; but 

 he had great talents, and remarkable perseverance and 

 industry. In 1739 he was appointed Superintendent of the 

 Royal Garden and Cabinet at Paris, a position which he 

 held till his death. His great work, of which we must now 

 speak, was his ' Natural History,' which occupied him the 

 greater part of his life. It is one comprehensive history of 

 the living world, containing descriptions of all the animals 

 then known, their structure, their distribution, their habits, 

 and their instincts, and, mingled with these, many curious 

 theories about the world and its inhabitants. 



The anatomical part of this work was done by a physician 

 named Daubenton, who came from Buffon's own village, and 

 was appointed keeper of the cabinet of natural history 

 through his influence. Buffon was very fortunate in having 

 the help of this man, for having weak sight himself, and 

 being more fond of general theories than of petty details, 

 this part of his work would have been very poor if it had 

 not been for Daubenton's careful and conscientious dis- 



