MEMOIR OF LE VAILLANT. 
Francis Le Vaillant, a celebrated traveller and 
ornithologist, was bom in the year 1753 at Para- 
maribo, the chief town in Dutch Guiana, where his 
father, a rich merchant and a native of Metz in 
France, held at that time the office of consul. The 
passion for foreign travel, which he evinced at a 
very early age, was imbibed, as he himself informs 
us, chiefly from the example of his father, who had 
visited many parts of the world in course of his 
commercial negociations. His taste for fowling, 
which the extensive forests in that country enabled 
him to gratify, even when a boy, to the utmost 
limit of his wishes, was likewise acquired from his 
father. 
When only ten years old, he was brought to 
Holland ; soon afterwards, he was removed with 
the family to France ; he then spent two years in 
Germany, and seven in Lorraine. During that 
period his principal amusement was bird-shooting, 
but it was not pursued as a mere recreation. It 
turned his attention to the study of ornithology, by 
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