THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF GEOFFROY ST.

HILAIRE Of the French precursors of Lamarck there were four--Duret (1609), De Maillet (1748), Robinet (1768), and Buffon.

The opinions of the first three could hardly be taken seriously, as they were crude and fantastic, though involving the idea of descent.

The suggestions and hypotheses of Buffon and of Erasmus Darwin were of quite a different order, and deserve careful consideration.
[Illustration: MAISON DE BUFFON, IN WHICH LAMARCK LIVED, 1793-1829] George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was born in 1707 at Montbard, Burgundy, in the same year as Linne.

He died at Paris in 1788, at the age of eighty-one years.