V 



556 DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



and several of the animals perished for want of 

 food. Those which remained in 1792 were of- 

 fered to M. de Saint-Pierre, intendant of the 

 garden, with a view to their dissection. He 

 refused to accept them on such terms, and pre- 

 sented a memorial to the government on the ne- 

 cessity of adding a menagerie to the Garden of 

 Plants (1). This memorial produced the de- 

 sired effect ; and six months subsequent to the 

 new organization of the establishment, the ani- 

 mals were removed to the Museum (2). At the 

 same time, by a decree of the corporation of 



(1) This memorial is printed in the 12th vol. of M. de Saint-Pierre's 

 works, page 635 to 669. The author urges the motives which should 

 determine the government to adopt the measure, and answers the ob- 

 jections of those who regarded it merely as wasteful magnificence. 

 He shews that the establishment, being designed for instruction in 

 natural history, ought to represent a picture of the three kingdoms; 

 that the study of zoology absolutely requires living subjects ; that the 

 idea formed of them from their skins and skeletons is as incomplete as 

 that formed of vegetation by turning over the leaves of an herbarium ; 

 that there should exist means of preserving the animals sent as presents 

 by foreign governments ; that several wild animals might one day be 

 usefully domesticated, if methods were contrived for rearing and mul- 

 tiplying them ; that by the crossing of different breeds new ones might 

 be obtained to the increase of agricultural riches ; that most of the. 

 animals in our farm yards were thus reclaimed from a state of nature. 

 In short he suggests some very wise plans, which no doubt had great 

 influence on the new organization of the Museum. 



(2) There were but five of them : a very tame lion, the aniilope 

 bubalis, the aniilope corinna, the equus quaccha, and the columba coro- 

 nata. The lion in particular attracted the attention of the public from 



