206 Memoir of Charles Alexander Lesueiir. 



turned out to be a failure. On the return to Paris of Peron and 

 Lesueur, they experienced a coldness of reception, on the part of 

 members of the Institute, which sorely afflicted them. In a mo- 

 ment of despondency, Peron was induced to wish that he had 

 never returned. But he soon rallied the forces of his vigorous 

 mind ; and waiting upon some of the prominent men of the 

 Academy of Sciences, he begged them to suspend their judg- 

 ment until the results of the expedition could be ascertained ; as- 

 suring them of his ability to show, that, notwithstanding all its 

 crosses and disasters, it would not suffer in comparison with any 

 that had preceded it, since the days of Cook and D'Entrecasteaux. 

 There was but one course for the disheartened naturalists to 

 pursue, and that was an appeal to the fruits of their manifold la- 

 bors. The collection of upwards of forty thousand specimens 

 of animals, which had been sent home from Port Jackson by the 

 Naturaliste, and the more numerous collection brought in the Ge- 

 ographe, were at the Museum of Natural History, without an in- 

 dication of their intrinsic value. At the instance of Peron and 

 Lesueur, a committee of the Academy of Sciences, consisting of 

 Messieurs Laplace, Bougainville, Fleurieu, Lacepede and Cuvier, 

 was appointed to examine these collections. In the performance 

 of their duty they made a preliminary report, the tendency of 

 which was to disabuse those public functionaries and Academi- 

 cians, who had permitted their judgment to be warped by preju- 

 dice or misrepresentation. Finally, at the meeting of the Class 

 of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, held on the 9th of June, 

 1806, a comprehensive report was made, from which the follow- 

 ing summary is taken. 



4i Of the live zoologists appointed by the government, two re- 

 mained at the Isle of France. Two others perished at the com- 

 mencement of the second campaign, by diseases contracted at 

 Timor. Peron alone was left ; but supported by his invigorated 

 ardor, and the efforts of his coadjutor Lesueur, a zoological col- 

 lection was made, the extent and importance of which become 

 more and more manifest. It is composed of more than one hun- 

 dred thousand specimens of animals, several of which will consti- 

 tute new genera : and the new species, according to the report ol 

 the Professors of the Museum, are upwards of two thousand five 

 hundred. If we call to mind that the second voyage of Cook, 

 fruitful as were its discoveries, made known not more than two 

 hundred and fifty new species, and that all the united voyages 

 of Carteret, Wall is, Furneaux, Mears, and even Vancouver, did 

 not produce as great a number, — it results that Peron and Lesueur \ 

 alone have discovered more new animals than all the traveling ™ 

 naturalists of modern days. 



u An imperfect method of description has hitherto greatly im- 

 peded the progress of zoological science. Travellers, and espe- 



