Louis Dufresne

Louis Dufresne(18 January 1752,Champien,near Peronne – 11 October 1832) was aFrenchornithologistandtaxidermist.

Louis Dufresne was one of thenaturalistson board theAstrolabe,which accompanied by theBoussole,leftBrestin August 1785 on a voyage of discovery. The ships went first toMadeiraandTenerife,then toTrinidadand then to the coast ofBrazil(includingSanta Catarina Island). RoundingCape Hornthe expedition landed atConcepciónand on to theSandwich Islandsand then sailed north along the coast of north-west America toAlaska.In 1786, the expedition resumed this time visitingMontereybefore crossing thePacificto land inMacaoin China. This expedition, led by Laperouse visited Botany Bay, Australia, in January 1788, only days after the First Fleet arrived, sailed north and was shipwrecked: Dufresne and Lesseps were the only ones to survive, Dufresne having left the expedition in Macau.

Six years later in 1793, Dufresne became a taxidermist andcuratoratMuseum d'Histoire Naturelle.His work included the classification and arrangement of collections ofinvertebratesas well asvertebratesand he visited many parts of the world on behalf of the Museum. In 1802 he popularized the use of arsenical soap for preserving birds in an article inNouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturellea technique which had enabled the Muséum to build the greatest collection of birds in the world.

Dufresne also maintained a private collection which by 1818 consisted of 1,600 bird specimens (on wooden supports and with both with Latin and French names), 800 world eggs, 4,000 shells, fossils, amphibians, corals and 12,000 insects. This collection purchased for the University of Edinburgh in 1819. In 1854 the University transferred the Natural History Museum into the government ownership to form a publicly-funded nationalmuseum, which became theRoyal Scottish Museum(now part ofNational Museums Scotland).

In 1829 Dufresne was awarded theLegion of Honour.He died of lung disease.

External links

• Differences between British and French Organization of Zoological Exploration in the Pacific 1793–1840