200 
MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 
did not appear to conform to the laws which he had 
established. 
However natural this method may appear to those 
who judge of it simply by good sense, it may easily 
happen that it cannot be readily followed, since it is so 
rare in the works of other naturalists, and because there 
are so few of them, for example, who have taken the 
trouble of affording us the means of placing the beings 
they describe, otherwise than they axe in their own 
systems. 
Accordingly, this work of Daubenton’s may be con- 
sidered as a rich mine, in which naturalists and ana- 
tomists occupied with quadrupeds are obliged to labour, 
and from which many writers have derived their most 
valuable materials, without any acknowledgment. It 
is sometimes enough to make a table of these observa- 
tions, and to place them in certain columns, in order to 
obtain the most striking results ; and it is thus that we 
must understand the expression of Camper, That Dan- 
benton did not know all the discoveries of which he 
was the author. 
He has been blamed for not having himself drawn 
the picture of these results. It was with a full know- 
ledge, of course, that he declined a work which would 
have flattered his self-love, but which might have led 
him into errors. Nature had shown him too many ex- 
ceptions, to enable him to believe that he could esta- 
blish a rule ; and his prudence was justified, not only 
by the bad success of those who were bolder than him- 
