Lacépède

Bernard Germain Étienne de la Ville, Comte de Lacépède (December 26, 1756 – October 6, 1825) was a French naturalist. December 26 is the 360th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, 361st in leap years. ... 1756 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... October 6 is the 279th day of the year (280th in Leap years). ... 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Natural history is an umbrella term for what are now usually viewed as a number of distinct scientific disciplines. ...

He was born at Agen in Guienne. His education was carefully conducted by his father, and the early perusal of Buffon's Natural History awakened his interest in that branch of study, which absorbed his chief attention. His leisure he devoted to music, in which, besides becoming a good performer on the piano and organ, he acquired considerable mastery of composition, two of his operas (which were never published) meeting with the high approval of Gluck; in 1781–1785 he also brought out in two volumes his Politique de la musique. Meantime he wrote two treatises, Essai sur l'électricité (1781) and Physique générale et particulaire (1782–1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785 appointed him subdemonstrator in the Jardin du Roi, and proposed that he continue Buffon's Histoire naturelle. This continuation was published under the titles Histoire des quadrupèdes, ovipares et des serpents (2 vols., 1788–1789) and Histoire naturelle des reptiles (1789). Agen is a city and commune located in the Aquitaine région in southern France, on the river Garonne. ... Aquitaine (or Guyenne or Guienne) now forms a région in south-western France along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. ... Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (September 7, 1707 - April 16, 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, biologist, cosmologist and author. ... Christoph Willibald Gluck (July 2, 1714 – November 15, 1787) was a German composer. ...

After the French Revolution Lacépède became a member of the legislative assembly, but during the Reign of Terror he left Paris, his life having become endangered by his disapproval of the massacres. When the Jardin du Roi was reorganized as the Jardin des Plantes, Lacépède was appointed to the chair allocated to the study of reptiles and fishes. In 1798 he published the first volume of Histoire naturelle des poissons, the fifth volume appearing in 1803, and in 1804 appeared his Histoire des cétacés. From this period until his death the part he took in politics prevented him making any further contribution of importance to science. In 1799 he became a senator, in 1801 president of the senate, in 1803 grand chancellor of the legion of honor, in 1804 minister of state, and at the Restoration in 1819 he was created a peer of France. He died at Epinay. During the latter part of his life he wrote Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe, published posthumously in 18 volumes, 1826. The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ... The Reign of Terror (June 1793 - July 1794) was a period in the French Revolution characterized by brutal repression. ... The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. ... Orders  Crocodilia - Crocodilians scary crocodiles. ... Atlantic herring, Clupea harengus, the most abundant fish species in the world, Photo by Uwe Kils This page is about the animals which live in water. ...

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...