Pallas, PETER SIMON

Pallas, PETER SIMON, traveller and naturalist, was born 22d September 1741, at Berlin, studied medicine and natural history at Berlin, Göttingen, and Leyden, and, already famous, was in 1768 invited to St Petersburg by the Empress Catharine. Appointed naturalist to a scientific expedition to observe the transit of Venus, he spent six years (1768-74) exploring the Urals, the Kirghiz Steppes, part of the Altai range, great part of Siberia, and the steppes of the Volga, returning with an extraordinary treasure of specimens in natural history. He wrote a series of works on the geography, ethnography, flora and fauna of the regions visited. He settled in the Crimea in 1796, and there he died, 8th September 1811.—The Sand-grouse (q.v.) is often called Pallas's Sand-grouse.