16 HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 
For myself, I had long hailed, with all my heart, the great French 
Revolution which had occurred in the Natural Sciences—the era of 
Lamarck and of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire,* so fertile in method, the 
mighty restorers of all science. With what happiness I traced their 
features in their legitimate sons—-those ingenious children who have 
inherited their intellect ! 
ETUNG 
At their head let me name the amiable and original author of the 
“Monde des Oiseaux,” + whom the world has long recognized as one 
of the most solid, if not also the most amusing, of naturalists. I 
shall refer to him more than once ; but I hasten, on the threshold of 
my book, to pay this preliminary homage to a truly great observer, 
who, in all that concerns his own observations, is as weighty, as 
special, as Wilson or Audubon. 
* Jean Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier do Lamarck, was born August 1, 1744; died 
December 20, 1829, His chief work is his ‘ History of Invertebrate Animals.”—Etienne 
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was born in 1772, and died in 1844. He expounds his theory of 
natural history in the “‘ Philosophie Anatomique,” 2 vols., 1818-20.—7'ranslator. 
} Alphonse Toussenel, an illustrious French Jitéérateur, born in 1803. The first edition 
of his “Le Monde des Oiseaux, Ornithologie Passionelle,” was published in 1852.— 
Translator. 
