122 HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM, 



1795. Not contented with completing his course 

 of lectures, M. de Lacepede resumed his former 

 labours in the cabinet, and soon after, on M. Geof- 

 froy's departure for Egypt, took charge of the 

 birds and quadrupeds, in addition to the objects 

 especially committed to his care. By him the 

 collection of birds, the most magnificent that 

 had ever been assembled, was arranged in beau- 

 tiful order for exhibition, and rendered clas- 

 sical for the study of ornithology. The celebrity 

 which he had acquired by his works, and by his 

 connexion with Buff on, attracted crowds of 

 young men to his lectures, whom he induced to 

 attach themselves to a branch of natural history 

 which had been little cultivated in France. Dur- 

 ing ten years his whole time was employed in 

 facilitating the study of a science which owed 

 much of its progress to himself ; and when called 

 to a post under government, which left him no 

 leisure for these pursuits, he ensured the solid 

 instruction of his pupils by choosing for his as- 

 sistant M. Dumeril, author of the Analytic Zoo- 

 logy, and the co-operator of M. Cuvier in the 

 first volumes of his Comparative Anatomy. 



The chevalier de Lamarck, so highly distin- 

 guished by his works on invertebrate d animals, 

 has for twenty-five years taught the history of 

 mollusca, Crustacea, insects, worms and zoophites. 



