Martinet “Le Fou tacheté, de Cayenne.” [Cayenne speckled gannet] Plate 986

After Comte de Buffon and others.  Plate 986.  “Le Fou tacheté, de Cayenne.”  Cayenne speckled gannet. From Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.  Paris, [1749-1804].  9 x 8 (image). Engraving by Martinet.   Original hand-coloring.  Old manuscript ink below title.  Very narrow left hand margin.  Else, very good condition.    The greatest name in France in the field of natural history during the eighteenth century was the Comte de Buffon (1707-1788).  Known best in America as the target of Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia in which the patriotic American scholar argued against a theory that New World species were inferior, Buffon enjoys a much greater reputation in Europe.  He was to France what Linnaeus was to Sweden, and he is best known as the first natural scientist to postulate that man evolved from apes. His prints from his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, have a delicacy of drawing and engraving that has lead some to claim that they are the finest e