Levaillant, FRANÇOIS

Levaillant, FRANÇOIS, traveller and ornithologist, was born in 1753 of French parents living at Paramaribo, in Dutch Guiana. In 1777-80 he studied natural history in Paris, and then spent more than two years in exploring the southern parts of South Africa (1781-84). His death occurred at Sézanne, south of Epernay, on 22d November 1824. He published accounts of two of these expeditions, not altogether free from imaginative details and exaggerations, under the title Voyages dans l'Intérieur de l'Afrique (1790-96). Several books by him on birds are marred by the same faulty tendencies; those on African birds, on the new and rare birds of America and India, and on paroquets are the most valuable.