Belon

Belon, PIERRE, a French naturalist, born in 1518 at Souletière in Maine, studied medicine at Paris, and in 1546 set out on a journey to Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Arabia. He returned in 1549, and in 1553 published the results of his travels. In April 1564 he was murdered by robbers whilst gathering herbs at a late hour of the evening in the Bois de Boulogne. Besides his book of travels, Belon wrote several valuable treatises on trees, herbs, birds, and fishes. He was one of the first who established the homologies between the skeletons of different vertebrates; he planted the first cedar in France; and he formed two botanical gardens more than a century before the creation of the Jardin des Plantes. A statue of him was unveiled at Le Mans in October 1887.