MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 
205 
common; but, by so doing, be must have quarrelled 
with the superintendent of the Jardin du Hoi, and -must 
have left the cabinet he had created, and to which he 
clung as to life. He forgot the affront and the loss, 
and continued to work as before. 
The regret which every naturalist manifested, when 
they saw the commencement of the History of Birds 
appear, without being accompanied with those exact 
descriptions, and careiul anatomical details, which they 
prized so highly, must have tended to console him. 
He would have had still more reason to be so, if his 
attachment for the great man who neglected him had 
not prevailed over his self love, when he saw those first 
volumes, to which Gueneau of Montbeillard contributed 
nothing, filled with inaccuracies, and destitute of all 
those details which it was physically and morally im- 
possible that Buffon could furnish. 
These imperfections were still more marked in the 
Supplements, works of Buflbn’s old age, in which this 
great writer carries his injustice so far as to devolve 
on a mere painter the part which Daubenton had so 
well executed in the first volumes. 
Many naturalists, accordingly, endeavoured to supply 
this want; and the celebrated Pallas, among others, 
absolutely took Daubenton for his model in his Miscel- 
lanea and Spicilegia Zoologica, as well as in his His- 
toire des Rongeurs, works which ought to be considered 
as real supplements to Buffon, and as the best which 
appeared on quadrupeds after his great work. 
b 
