xliv JOURNAL OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS 
Barrier Reef). Turning northwards he sailed, by the Louisiade Archi- 
pelago and New Guinea, to the Moluccas, returning to France in 1769 
vid Batavia and Mauritius. 
Bougainville was accompanied on this voyage by a naturalist, 
Philibert Commerson, whose servant, Jean Bary, passed for a man until 
her sex was recognised by the Tahitians. Otourrou, a Tahitian whom 
Bougainville took with him to France, died of small-pox at Mada- 
gascar while being conveyed back to his native country. The genus 
Bougainvillea was so named by Commerson in honour of the navigator, 
who was the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe. Bougain- 
ville afterwards commanded various vessels in the American War. 
Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1723-1806), French naturalist and 
physicist, author of ‘Le régne animal” (1756), and “ Ornithologie” 
(1760), and various works on physics. 
BrossE or Brossss, Charles de (1709-77), first President of the 
Parliament of Burgundy, author of “Histoire des Navigations aux 
Terres Australes” (1756). 
Browne, Patrick (17207-1790), a physician who studied natural 
history, more particularly botany, and after a voyage to the West 
Indies published the “Civil and Natural History of Jamaica” (1756). 
He also compiled more or less local catalogues of birds, fishes, and 
plants. 
Burron, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de (1707-88), French 
naturalist and writer. Upon being appointed Director of the King’s 
Garden at Paris, in 1739, he conceived the idea of compiling a natural 
history of creation, and devoted the following fifty years of his life to 
carrying out this project, with the help of other naturalists. His 
“ Histoire naturelle” (published at various periods from 1749 to 1788) 
treats of the theory of the earth, nature of animals, man, viviparous 
quadrupeds, birds, and minerals. The task was continued after his 
death by Lacépéde. 
Byron, Vice-Admiral John (1723-86), was the second son of the 
fourth Lord Byron, and grandfather of the poet. He accompanied 
Anson on his voyage to the Pacific as a midshipman on board the 
Wager, which was wrecked on the coast of Chile in 1741: some years 
later he published the details of his adventures (1768). In 1764 he 
was appointed to the Dolphin, with orders to explore the South Seas. 
He left England in company with the Tamar, and, passing through 
the Straits of Magellan, stood across the Pacific, but following a 
course already known, made no discoveries of any importance. With 
a great deal of scurvy on board he reached the Ladrones, and returned 
home in 1766. [Otahite was rediscovered on the Dolphin’s second 
