•

• 1741. José Gumilla (Spanish) published a work on the natural history of the
Orinoco River region.

• 1745. Charles Bonnet (French-Swiss, 1720–1793) wrote "Traite d'Insectologie"

(1745) and "Contemplation de la nature" (1732). He confirmed parthenogenesis
of aphids.

• 1745. Pierre Louis M. de Maupertius (French, 1698–1759) went to Lapland to

measure the arc of the meridian (1736–1737). (He fared much better than did
Charles Marie de La Condamine, who went to work in Peru.) Maupertuis was a
Newtonian. He generated family trees for inheritable characteristics (e.g.,
hemophilia in European royal families) and showed inheritance through both the
male and female lines. He was an early evolutionist and head of the Berlin
Academy of Sciences. In 1744 he proposed the theory that molecules from all
parts of the body were gathered into the gonads (later called "pangenesis").
"Vénus physique" was published anonymously in 1745. Maupertuis wrote "Essai
de cosmologie" in which he suggests a survival of the fittest concept: "Could not
one say that since, in the accidental combination of Nature's productions, only
those could survive which found themselves provided with certain appropriate
relationships, it is no wonder that these relationships are present in all the species
that actually exist? These species which we see today are only the smallest part of
those which a blind destiny produced." Few people read Maupertuis today, and he
is mostly known because Voltaire unjustly made fun of him.

• 1748. John Tuberville Needham, an English naturalist, wrote "Observations upon

the Generation, Composition, and Decomposition of Animal and Vegetable
Substances" in which he offers "proof" of spontaneous generation. Needham
found flasks of broth teeming with "little animals" after having boiled them and
sealed them, but his experimental techniques were faulty.

• 1748-1751. Peter Kalm (Swede) was a naturalist and student of Linnaeus. He

traveled in North America (1748–1751).

• 1749-1804. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (French, 1707–1788) wrote

"Histoire Naturelle" (1749-1804 in 44 vols.) that had a great impact on zoology.
He asserted that species were mutable. Buffon also drew attention to vestigial
organs. He held that spermatozoa were "living organic molecules" that multiplied
in the semen. All in all, Buffon was probably the greatest naturalist since the time
of Aristotle until Darwin.

• 1757. Miguel Venegas (Spanish) wrote "Noticia de la California" (1757).

• 1758. Albrecht von Haller (Swiss, 1708–1777) was one of the founders of modern
physiology. His work on the nervous system was revolutionary. He championed
animal physiology, along with human physiology. See his textbook "Elementa
Physiologiae Corporis Humani" (1758).
• 1758. Karl von Linnaeus (Swedish, 1707–1778) published the "Systema Naturae"
whose tenth edition (1758) is the starting point of binomial nomenclature for
zoology. He was banned by the Pope for using the sexual parts of plants in his
botanical classification, but this probably just increased his readership.

• 1759. Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1733–1794) wrote "Theoria Generationis" (1759)

that disagreed with the whole idea of performation. He supported the doctrine of
epigenesis. This youthful follower of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von
Liebnitz (1646–1716) almost took on Albrecht von Haller (also a vitalist) as an
adversary. Wolff sought to resolve the problem of hybrids (mule, hinny, apemen)
in his epigenesis, since these could not be well explained by performation.

• 1768. Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) and Daniel Solander (1733–1782) sailed
with Captain James Cook (English, 1728–1779) on the H.M.S. Endeavor for the
South Seas (Tahiti), until 1771.

• 1769. Edward Bancroft (English) wrote "An Essay on the Natural History of
Guyana in South America" (1769) and advanced the theory that flies transmit
disease.

• 1771. Johann Reinhold Forster (German, 1729–1798) was the naturalist on Cook's
second voyage around the world (1772–1775). He published a "Catalogue of the
Animals of North America" (1771) as an addendum to Kalm's "Travels." He also
studied the birds of Hudson Bay.

• 1774. Gilbert White (English) wrote "The natural history and antiquities of
Selborne, in the county of Southampton" (1774) with fine ornithological
observations on migration, territoriality and flocking.

• 1774. Oliver Goldsmith (English) wrote "An history of the Earth and animated
matter" (1774) that has a few gems among the trash. "She stoops to conquer" is
far better reading.

• 1775. Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739–1819) wrote "Die Säugethiere
in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen" (1775). (This book is in the
Emilio Goeldi Museum's rare book collection in Belém, Brazil.)

• 1775. Johann Christian Fabricius (Danish, 1745–1808) wrote "Systema

Entomologiae" (1775), "Genera Insectorum" (1776), "Philosophia Entomologica"
(1778), "Entomologia Systematica" (1792–1794, in six vols.), and later
publications (to 1805), to make Fabricius one of the world's greatest
entomologists.

• 1776. René Dutrochet (French, 1776–1832) proposed an early version of the cell
theory.

• 1778. Franz Anton Mesmer (Austrian, 1734–1815) made it big with high society
in Paris, introduced mesmerism or "animal magnetism", as a health craze in
 Europe (1780–1790).

• 1778. J.C. Fabricius (Danish, 1745–1808) put systematic entomology on firm

basis, starting with his "Philosophia Entomlogica" (1778).

• 1780. Lazaro Spallanzani (Italian, 1729–1799) performed artificial fertilization in

the frog, silkmoth and dog. He concluded from filtration experiments that
spermatozoa were necessary for fertilization. In 1783 he showed that human
digestion was a chemical process since gastric juices in and outside the body
liquefied food (meat). He used himself as the experimental animal. His work to
disprove spontaneous generation in microbes was resisted by John Needham
(English priest, 1713–1781).

• 1780. Antoine Lavoisier (French, 1743–1794) and Pierre Laplace (French, 1749–
1827) wrote "Memoir on heat." Animal respiration was a form of combustion, a
conclusion reached by this discoverer of Oxygen.

• 1783. Johann Hermann wrote "Tabula affinitatum animalium", etc.

• 1783-1792. Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira (Brazilian) undertook biological

exploration. He wrote "Viagem Filosófica pelas Captanias do Grão-Pará, Rio
Negro, Mato Grosso e Cuiabá". His specimens were taken by Saint-Hilaire from
Lisbon to the Paris Museum during the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal. He is
considered the "Brazilian Humboldt."

• 1784. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German) wrote "Erster Entwurk einer
Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie" (1795) that promoted the idea of
archetypes to which animals should be compared. Vitalist and romantic, his
zoology mostly follows Lorenz Oken. Goethe was wrong about the vertebrate
skull being an expansion of vertebrae, but it was a good try.

• 1784. Thomas Jefferson (American) wrote "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1784)
that refuted some of Buffon's mistakes about the New World fauna. As U.S.
President, he dispatched the Lewis and Clark expedition to the American West
(1804).

• 1788-1789. Comte de Lacépède (Bernard Germain Étienne de la Ville-sur-Illon

Lacépède) (French) wrote "Histoire Naturalle des Quadrupèdes ovipares et des
Serpens" (1788–1798). This book was a great success with the public because of
its anecdotal style, but it should be rejected for eccentric nomenclature. (See also
his "Histoire Naturalle des Poissons" (1798), a copy of which is in the Emilio
Goeldi Museum 's rare book collection.)

• 1789? Guillaume Antoine Olivier (French, 1756–1814) wrote "Entomologie", or

"Histoire Naturalle des Insectes" (1789). (There is a copy in the Emilio Goeldi
Museum's rare book collection.)

• 1789. George Shaw & Frederick Polydore Nodder published "The Naturalist's
 Miscellany: or coloured figures of natural objects drawn and described
immediately from nature" (1789–1813) in 24 volumes with hundreds of color
plates.

• 1791. Petrus Camper (Dutch anatomist and painter, 1722-?) wrote "Physical
dissertation on the real differences that men of different countries and ages
display" (1791) in which he defined the facial angle (for artistic purposes) and
inadvertently began the "scientific" racism of skull measurers. He also studied
hearing in fishes, the hollow bones of birds, and the skeleton of the orangutan. All
in all, he was highly original in his interests and approaches.

• 1792. François Huber made original observations on honeybees. In his "Nouvelles

Observations sur les Abeilles" (1792) he noted that the first eggs laid by queen
bees develop into drones if her nuptial flight had been delayed and that her last
eggs would also give rise to drones. He also noted that rare worker eggs develop
into drones. This anticipated by over 50 years the discovery by Johann Dzieron
that drones come from unfertilized eggs and queen and worker bees come from
fertilized eggs.

• 1793. Lazaro Spallanzani (Italian, 1729–1799) conducted experiments on the

orientation of bats and owls in the dark. These are well summarized in Donald R.
Griffin's "Listening in the Dark: The acoustic orientation of bats and men" (Yale
University Press, 1958)

• 1793. Christian Konrad Sprengel (1750–1816) wrote "Das entdeckte Geheimniss

der Natur im Bau und in der Befruchtung der Blumen" (1793) that was a major
work on insect pollination of flowers, previously discovered in 1721 by Philip
Miller (1694–1771), the head gardener at Chelsea and author of the famous
"Gardener's Dictionary" (1731–1804).

• 1794. Erasmus Darwin (English, grandfather of Charles Darwin) wrote

"Zoönomia, or the Laws of Organic Life" (1794) in which he advanced the idea
that environmental influences could transform species. Darwin, in his
"Autobiography", did not think his grandfather's ideas had much of an effect on
him, but that is open to debate.

• 1795. James Hutton (English) wrote "Theory of the Earth" (1795) in which he
interpreted certain geological strata as former sea beds.

• 1796 - 1829. Pierre André Latreille (French, 1762–1833) sought to provide a

"natural" system for the classification of animals, in his many monographs on
invertebrates. "Insectes de l'Amerique Equinoxiale" (1811) was devoted to insects
collected by Humboldt and Bonpland. See also C.S. Sonnini and P.A. Latreille
"Histoire naturalle des Reptiles" (4 vols., 1801).

• 1798. Edward Jenner (English, 1749–1823) promoted vaccination with cow pox
as a preventative against smallpox.
• 1798. Thomas Robert Malthus (English, 1766–1834) wrote "Essay on the
Principle of Population" (1798), a book that was important to both Darwin and
Wallace.

• 1799. George Shaw (English), not the playwright, provided the first description of
the duck-billed platypus. Everard Home (1802) provided the first complete
description. See Shaw's "General Zoology, or Systematic Natural History" (1799-
1802?).

• 1799-1803. Alexander von Humboldt (German, 1769–1859) and Jacques Goujaud

Aim Bonpland (French) arrived in Venezuela in 1799. Humboldt's "Personal
Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America during the years
1799-1803" and "Kosmos" were very influential in his time and since.

• 1799. Baron Georges C.L.D. Cuvier (French, 1769–1832) established

comparative anatomy as a field of study. He also founded the science of
paleontology. He wrote "Leçons d'Anatomie Comparée" (1801–1805), "Le Règne
Animal distribué d'après son organisation" (1816), "Ossemens Fossiles" (1812–
1813). He believed in the fixity of species and the Biblical Flood. His early
"Tableau élémentaire de l'histoire naturalle des animaux" (1798) was influential,
but it did not include Cuvier's major contributions to animal classification.

• 1799. American hunters killed the last bison in the American East, in
Pennsylvania.

• 1802. Chevalier de Lamark (Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet) (French,

1744–1829) wrote "Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corpos Vivants" and
"Philosophie zoologique" (1809). He was an early evolutionist and organized
invertebrate paleontology. While Lamarck's contributions to science include work
in meteorology, botany, chemistry, geology, and paleontology, he is best known
for his work in invertebrate zoology and his theoretical work on evolution. He
published an impressive seven-volume work, "Histoire naturelle des animaux sans
vertèbres" (Natural History of Animals without Backbones, 1815–1822). Lamarck
today is simply Darwin's foil among folks too lazy to read what he had to say.

• 1804. Matthias Jakob Schleiden (German, 1804–1881) stated a cell theory for
plants.

• 1805. Lorenz Oken (German, later Swiss, 1779–1851) wrote "Die Zeugung"
(1805) in which he revealed himself to be both vitalist and romantic. ("Life issued
from the sea.") He was closely associated with Goethe. His "Lehbuch der
Naturgeschichte" was rejected for its non-standard nomenclature (Opinion 417 of
the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature).

• 1807. William Hyde Wollaston, mineralogist, invented the camera lucida.

• 1813-18. William Charles Wells (Scottish-American, 1757–1817) was the first to

recognise the principle of natural selection. He read a paper to the Royal Society
 in 1813 (but not published until 1818) which used the idea to explain differences
between human races. The application was limited to the question of how
different skin colours arose.

• 1815. William Kirby and William Spence (English) wrote "An Introduction to
Entomology" (first edition in 1815). This was the first modern entomology text.

• 1817. Georges Cuvier wrote "Le Règne Animal" (Paris).

• 1817-1820. Johann Baptist von Spix (German, 1781–1826) and Carl Friedrich
Philipp von Martius (German) conducted Brazilian zoological and botanical
explorations (1817–1820). See their "Reise in Brasilien auf Befehl Sr. Majestät
Maximilian Joseph I König von Bayern in den Jahren 1817 bis 1820 gemacht und
beschrieben." (3 vols., 1823–1831).

• 1817. Johann Natterer (Austrian, 1787–1843) undertook Brazilian zoological

explorations (1817–1835).

• 1817. William Smith, in his "Strategraphical System of Organized Fossils" (1817)

showed that certain strata have characteristic series of fossils.

• 1817. Thomas Say (American, 1787–1834) was a brilliant young systematic

zoologist until he moved to the utopian community at New Harmony, Indiana, in
1825. Luckily, most of his insect collections have been recovered.

• Ωιλ λ ι α µ Λαω ρ ε ν χ ε (English, 1783–1867) published a book of

his lectures to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1919. The book contains 1. a
remarkably clear rejection of Lamarkism (soft inheritance), 2. proto-evolutionary
ideas about the origin of mankind, and 3. a forthright denial of the 'Jewish
scriptures' (= Old Testament). He was forced to suppress the book after the Lord
Chancellor refused copyright and other powerful men made threatening remarks.
His subsequent life was highly successful.

• 1820. Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied wrote "Reise nach Brasilien in den

Jahren 1815-1817" (2 vols., 1820, 1821) with the results of his work in eastern
South America. Ninety plates (Abbildungen) were published in 1822-1831.

• 1822. Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent "Dictionnaire classique d'Histoire

Naturelle" (17 vols., 1822–1831).

• 1822. Martin Lichtenstein wrote "Die erke von Marcgrave und Piso Über die
Naturgeschichte Brasiliens erläutert aus den wieder aufgefundenen Original-
Abbildungen" (1822).

• 1824. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is
founded at London.

• 1825. Gideon Mantell (English) wrote "Notice on the Iguanodon, a newly

discovered fossil reptile, from the sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex" (Phil.
 Trans. Roy, Soc. Lond., 115: 179-186) is the first paper on dinosaurs. The name
dinosaur was coined by anatomist Richard Owen.

• 1826. The Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park is founded by the Zoological

Society of London with help from Sir Thomas Raffles. It opened its "zoo" to the
public for two days a week beginning April 27, 1828, with the first hippopotamus
to be seen in Europe since the ancient Romans showed one at the Coliseum. The
Society will help save bird and animal species from extinction.

• 1826-1839. John James Audubon (Haitian-born American, 1785–1851) wrote

"Birds of America" (1826–1839), with North American bird portraits and studies.
See also his posthumously published volume on North American. Quadrupeds,
written with his sons and the naturalist John Bachman, "The Viviparous
Quadrupeds of North America" (1845–1854) with 150 folio plates.

• 1827. Karl Ernst von Baer (Russian embryologist, 1792–1876) was the founder of
comparative embryology. He demonstrated the existence of the mammalian
ovum, and he proposed the germ-layer theory. His major works include "De ovi
mammalium et hominis genesi" (1827) and "Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der
Tiere" (1828; 1837).

• 1829. James Smithson (English, 1765–1829) donated seed money in his will for
the founding of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

• 1830-1833. Sir Charles Lyell (English, 1797–1875) wrote "Principles of

Geology" and gave the time needed for evolution to work its wonders. Darwin
took this book to sea on the Beagle. Past environments were probably much more
perturbed than Lyell admitted.

• 1830. Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (French, 1772–1844) wrote "Principes de

philosophie zoologique" (1830).

• 1831-1836. Charles Robert Darwin (English, 1809–1882) and Captain Robert

FitzRoy (English) went to sea as the original odd couple. The official publication
was the "Voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle." See Darwin's "Journal of Researches into
the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by the H.M.S.
Beagle under the command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N., from 1832 to 1836" (1839).

• 1832. Thomas Nuttall (American?, 1786–1859) wrote "A Manual of the

Ornithology of the United States and Canada" (1832) that was to become the
standard text on the subject for most of the 19th century.

• 1834. T. Hawkins (English) wrote "Memoirs of Ichthyosarri and Plesiosauri,

Extinct Monsters of Ancient Earth" (1834) and "The Book of the Great Sea-
Dragons, Ichthyosarri and Plesiosauri, Gedolim Taninim of Moses" (1840).

• 1834. André Marie Constant Duméril, Auguste Dumériland Gabriel Bibron

(French) wrote "Erpétologie gérérale ou Histoire Naturalle Compète de Reptiles"
 (9 vols., atlas, 1834–1854).

• 1835. William Swainson (English, 1789–1855) wrote A Treatise on the

Geography and Classification of Animals (1835) in which he used ad hoc land
bridges to explain animal distributions. He included some interesting, second-
hand observations on Old World army ants.

• 1836. William Buckland (English, 1784–1856) wrote "Geology and Mineralogy

Considered with Reference to natural Theology" (1836) in which he stated that
there were several creations.

• 1839. Theodor Schwann (German, 1810–1882) wrote "Mikroskopischen

Untersuchungen über die Übereinstimmungen in der Strucktur und dem
Wachstum der Thiere nd Pflanzen" (1839). With him the cell theory was made
general.

• 1839. Jean Louis Rudolph Agassiz (Swiss-American, 1807–1873) arrived in the

U.S. A former student of Cuvier, Louis Agassiz was an expert on fossil fishes. He
founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Harvard University, and
became Darwin's North American opposition. He was a popularizer of natural
history and exhorted students to "study nature, not books." His "Nomenclator
Zoologicus" (1842–1847) was a pioneering effort, but in it Agassiz unfortunately
emends many names he thought to be incorrectly derived. See his "Contributions
to the Natural History of the United States" (1862).

• 1840. Charles Darwin wrote the "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle" in which
no evolutionary idea is put forward.

• 1840. Jan Evangelista Purkyně, a Czech physiologist, at Wrocław proposes that

the word "protoplasm" be applied to the formative material of young animal
embryos.

• 1842. Charles Darwin (English) wrote "The Structure and Distribution of Coral
Reefs" (1842). Again, no evolutionary theory was advanced in this work.

• 1842. Baron Justus von Liebig wrote "Die Thierchemie" in which he applied
classic methodology to studying animal tissues, suggested that animal heat is
produced by combustion, and founded the science of biochemistry.

• 1843. John James Audubon, age 58, ascended the Missouri River to Fort Union at
the mouth of the Yellowstone to sketch wild animals.

• 1844. Robert Chambers (Scottish, 1802–1871) wrote "The Vestiges of the Natural
History of Creation" (1844) in which he included early evolutionary
considerations. The most primitive species originated by spontaneous generation,
but these gave rise to more advanced ones. This book, anonymously published,
had a profound effect on Wallace. Evolution "was the manner in which the Divine
Author has been pleased to work."
• 1845. von Siebold Protozoa recognized as single-celled animals.

• 1848. Josiah C. Nott (American), a physician from New Orleans, published his
belief that mosquitoes transmitted malaria.

• 1848. Alfred Russel Wallace (English, 1823–1913) and Henry W. Bates (English,
1825–1892) arrived in the Amazon River valley in 1848. Bates stayed until 1859,
exploring the upper Amazon. Wallace remained in the Amazon until 1852,
exploring the Rio Negro. Wallace wrote "A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon
and Rio Negro" (1853), and Bates wrote "The Naturalist on the River Amazons"
(1863). Later (1854–1862), Wallace went to the Far East, reported in his "The
Malay Archipelago" (1869).

• 1848. Richard Moritz Schomburgk (German) wrote "Versuch einer

Zusammenstellung der Flora und Fauna von Britisch-Guiana" (1848).

• 1849. Arnold Adolph Berthold demonstrated by castration and testicular

transplant that the testis produces a blood-borne substance promoting male
secondary sexual characteristics.

• 1850? Thomas Hardwicke (British naturalist) discovered the lesser panda (Ailurus
fulgens) in northern India.

• 1850? Bram Stoker (English), author of "Dracula" maligned vampire bats.

• 1851. Herman Melville (American author) wrote "Moby Dick", possibly the
greatest novel in all American literature, that is only superficially about whaling
but which nonetheless provides valuable information about how whales were
hunted and used.

• 1854. Henry David Thoreau (American) published "Walden" (1854) and Philip
Henry Gosse published The Aquarium starting a craze.He was also crazy. See his
Omphalos Theory.

• 1855. Alfred Russel Wallace (English, 1823–1913) wrote "On the law which has
regulated the introduction of new species" (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., September
1855) with evolutionary ideas that drew upon Wallace's experiences in the
Amazon.

• 1856. Lord Kelvin (English) estimated the age of the solar system given as 25
million years, later changed to 40 million.

• 1857. Discovery of Neanderthal skull-cap: the first fossil of a pre-sapiens

hominin.

• 1857-1881. Henri Milne-Edwards (French, 1800–1885) introduced the idea of

physiologic division of labor and wrote a treatise on comparative anatomy and
physiology (1857–1881).
•