MEMOIR OF DAL'BENTON. 
201 
self, but also by bis own example ; the only rule he had 
ventured to establish, that of the number of cervical 
vertebras in quadrupeds, having been disproved towards 
the close of his life.* 
He has also been blamed for having restricted his 
anatomical investigations, limiting them to the descrip- 
tion of the skeleton and viscera, without treating of the 
muscles, vessels, nerves, and exterior organs of the 
senses : but it cannot be proved that it was possible for 
him to avoid this accusation, until we have done better 
than he, in the same time, and with the same means. 
It is certain at least, that one of his pupils, who wished 
to supply these defects, has, for the most part, given us 
nothing but compilations, too often insignificant. 
Accordingly, as soon as his great work appeared, 
Daubenton did not fail to obtain the usual recompense 
of all great undertakings ; glory and honour ; criticism 
and irritability ; for, in the career of the sciences, as in 
all others, it is less difficult to attain to glory and even 
fortune, than to preserve tranquillity when one has 
attained to them. 
Reaumer at that time held- the sceptre of Natural 
History. No one had shown greater sagacity in obser- 
vation, no one had rendered Nature more interesting 
by the wisdom and species of foresight of details, the 
proofs of which he had found in the history of the smal- 
lest animals. His memoirs on insects, although diffuse, 
* There are, in general, seven : the Three Fingered Sloths, 
or the animals named Ai, have nine. 
