



Memoir of Charles Alexander Lesueur. 207 



cialty several of the Linnean school, have sanctioned this method 

 because it is easy and expeditious. Limiting themselves to pre- 

 sent, in a specific phrase, more or less short, certain characters 

 omitting a notice of those which, according to this method, were 

 useless for the distinction of the new species from those already 

 known, they thereby obtained only relative descriptions, scarcely 

 sufficient for the wants of Science at the period of their discov- 

 ery ; and which became useless in proportion as new objects re- 

 quired new terms of comparison. Peron has avoided this error ; 

 and his definitions, founded upon a general and invariable basis, 

 embrace all the details of exterior organization of the animal, es- 

 tablish all its characters in an absolute manner, and will conse- 

 quently survive the revolutions of methods or systems. 



"A description, nevertheless, how complete soever it may be, 

 can never give a sufficiently just idea of those singular forms, 

 which have no precise term of comparison in objects previously 

 known. Correct figures alone can supply the imperfection of 

 language. Here, the labors of which it is our duty to render an 

 account, acquire a new interest. Fifteen hundred drawings or 

 paintings, executed by M. Lesueur, with extreme precision, re- 

 produce the principal objects which were collected by his care- 

 ful industry, and that of his friend. All these drawings, either 

 made from living animals or recent specimens, form the most 

 complete and the most precious series of the kind that we have 

 any knowledge of. 



"Now we would venture to ask what labor more interesting 

 and complete than that in which is comprised so many important 

 and new animals ; than that in which all the circumstances of 

 temperature, of places, of seasons, of habitudes, of food, have been 

 scrupulously observed and collected : wherein all the descriptions 

 have been made from perfect individuals, after a uniform and es- 

 tablished method ; wherein all the essential objects have been 

 drawn or painted in a natural state, with the greatest exactitude, 

 and in all their details ; wherein all these same objects have been 

 preserved with so much care that there are but few of them of 

 which the immediate examination may not serve as a medium 

 °f comparison and verification, as well for the description as for 

 the drawing ! We do not hesitate to declare that such labors are 

 infinitely superior to all those of the same nature which have 

 hitherto been effected until the present day by any similar expe- 

 dition, either of our own country or of foreign nations. 



"The value of the accession to the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory has been enhanced, not only by the objects presented to 

 Peron and Lesueur personally, by strangers, in the various coun- 

 tries they visited, but even by those which they procured at their 

 Private expense, and for the purchase of which they were some- 

 times obliged to contract onerous debts. They have reserved 



