It’s François Levaillant’s 262nd birthday, occasion once again to wonder why there is no modern biography of an explorer and ornithologist whose works, now forgotten by all but the bibliophile, were tremendously influential in the nineteenth century.
Part of the reason is no doubt Levaillant’s tendency to exaggeration — a tendency that, to my mind, makes him an even more fascinating subject. The obvious errors in some of his ornithological studies have also rendered him persona less grata in scientific circles, but again, those slips simply serve to point out how busy he was and how far-flung his interests.
Levaillant hasn’t always been under-appreciated. Three years after the explorer’s death in 1824, Johann Georg Wagler, that most critical of critics, had this to say about the Frenchman’s publications:
After making two journeys through the interior portions of southern Africa, Levaillant published a report of what he had seen and observed; one cannot overstate how much his observations have enriched our knowledge of ornithology.
The high expectations that all experts in the field had for the untiring effort of this man’s natural history investigations were not just met but thoroughly exceeded by the vast store of outstanding observations he provided on not a few southern African birds that had eluded all investigators before him.
Wagler was not a great stylist, but you get the point. Levaillant’s eventual biographer — you know you’re out there — could do worse than to start with the words of his contemporaries and immediate successors.
