450 



NA TURE 



(June lo, 1909 



A GREAT NATURALIST.' 



PHILIBERT COMMERSON was one of our 

 greatest naturalists, and we cordially welcome 

 the first life to be published in English. Until twenty- 

 one years of age he struggled with the law, in 1848 

 turning to medicine, which he studied at Montpellier. 

 In those days the whole of biology was a relatively 

 small study, and Commerson began to be distin- 

 guished in every line in his own small university 

 sphere. However, the influence of Linnaeus turned 

 him towards botany, the chief research in which was 

 at that time the discovery and description of new 

 species. He worked in the botanic gardens at Mont- 

 pellier, but a jealous professor intervened, and, on 

 the excuse that he had purloined a fruit from the 

 gardens for his herbarium, interdicted him 



from entering them. He became a scientific , 



outcast, a circumstance we cannot deplort', ' 

 since it made him a wanderer, the firsl I 

 scientific visitor to many lands. At first, I 

 as was the way in those days, he started 

 to form a garden, where all the species of 

 plants of the temperate regions should be | 

 grown. _ He travelled widely in western 

 Europe, and arranged exchanges of seeds 

 and fruits with every garden of note, he 

 himself being the proud possessor of many 

 new ))lants which he had discovered. One 

 list of his shows the trees and shrubs of 

 south-east France, arranged in environments, 

 almost as Schimper might have done them. 



In 1767 Commerson embarked in the Etoilc, 

 the consort of the Boudeiise, de Bougain- 

 ville's ship, in her famous voyage round the 

 world. His letters on Rio de Janeiro and 

 Buenos Ayres show considerable penetration 

 in affairs. He collected assiduously, and 

 near Rio obtained the Bougainvillea. In 

 addition to botany he made many curious 

 observations on fish, which he generalh 

 dissected. Thus, the shark is alvvays in .1 

 state , of fearful hunger owing to the large 

 numbers of t'lpe and other worms in its 

 ir^testines. The brown coloration of tin- 

 Remora on both its upper and lower surface^ 

 is referred to its habits. His observations 

 were practical also, those on whales leading 

 to the subsequent establishment of the pros- 

 perous Saint Malo industry. 



.'vfter the usual difficulty in passing tlic 

 Straits, Bougainville's expedition sailed 

 across the Pacific in about latitude 27° S., 

 passing through the Paumotua Archi- 

 pelago to Tahiti. From here, after a search 

 for Terra y\ustralis, they coasted through 

 the .Solomon Islands to the Moluccas and ''° 



Batavia, where thev refitted, Commerson 

 securing numerous new fish and plants as well 

 as tlie first leaf-insect. He left his companions 

 at Mauritius with his already immense collec- 

 tions, remaining with Poivre, who was at that 

 time the civil governor. He was indefatigable in 

 collecting, his work on the Mauritius plants being the 

 foundation of Mauritius botany. .'\t the same time 

 he was urging a scheme for an academy in the 

 island which should take general cognisance of all 

 tropical, economic, and other products. Of peculiar 

 interest now is Commerson 's suggestion to introduce 

 frogs to clear the stagnant waters of gnat larvse. 

 Then followed visits to Madagascar, the collections 

 from which fortunately found their wav into 



1 " The Ufa nf Philibert Commerson, D.IVI., Nat.iralist du Uo\ : an Old- 

 World Story of French Travel and Science in the Days of LinnKU=." By 

 the late Captain .S. Pasficid Oliver, an.l edited hy G. F. Scott Klliott. Pp. 

 xvii + j42. (London : John Murray, 1909.) Price lot. 6rf. net. 



NO. 2067, VOL. 80] 



Lamarck's capable hands, and to Reunion, where the 

 then active volcanoes were e.\amined. The remainder 

 of the tale is a piteous account of jealousy at home 

 acting to prevent Commerson 's return to Europe. 

 His constitution was already enfeebled by five years 

 of hard and exposed work in the tropics, and he died 

 in Mauritius in 1773. His journals, of the quality 

 of which we can judge from his letters, freely quoted 

 in the book before us, were never published as such, 

 though they form a large part of Lac^pede's 

 " Histoire Naturelle," and were freely used by Cuvier, 

 and probably Buffon. 



Had Commerson lived, he would have left a name 

 second onlv to that of Linnaeus among eighteenth- 

 century naturalists, for besides his vast knowledge 



"~1 



he had a rare insight into the interrelations of 

 animals and plants in nature, and their dependence 

 on, and adaptation to, local geological and physical 

 conditions. He was too clearly an evolutionist, and 

 with his vast knowledge and extraordinary person- 

 ality might well have changed the history of biology 

 bv causing the acceptance of that idea even in the 

 eighteenth century. He himself knew 25,000 plants, 

 and supposed the world must contain 1,25,000 — it 

 actually is now known to have rather more than 

 200,000 — thus being more than 110,000 nearer the 

 number than any of his contemporaries, even the great 

 Linnaeus thinking he had completed his arch with 

 less than 10,000. 



Commerson was indeed a great man, and his life 

 is ably and attractively pieced together by the late 

 Capt. Oliver from evidently very fragmentary mate- 



