Francois Le Vaillant, a French traveller, born in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, in 1753, died at Sezanne, France, Nov. 22, 1824. His father, a merchant and consul at Paramaribo, returned to Europe when his son was 10 years of age. For several years he studied natural history, and in order to study the habits of birds in nature went to the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived March 29, 1781. After making an expedition into the interior of Africa, penetrating as far N. as the tropic of Capricorn, he returned to Paris in 1785, and published a narrative of his adventures in two successive works: Voyage dans l' interieur de l'Afrique, de 1781 a '1783 (Paris, 1790), and Second voyage dans l'interieur de l'Afrique (Paris, 1796). His African adventures were greatly though unjustly discredited. Though not concerned in politics, he was arrested as suspect in 1793, and owed his escape from death to the downfall of Robespierre. He passed the remainder of his life on a small estate in Champagne, and published during this time 12 volumes, mostly folio, on the birds of Africa, in magnificent style with costly illustrations.

A part of his valuable collection of animal specimens was purchased by the French government, and the rest was sold in Holland.

Francois Le Vaillant #1

See Le Vaillant.