born Sept. 7, 1707, Montbard, Fr.
died April 16, 1788, Paris
French naturalist.
He studied mathematics, medicine, and botany until a duel forced him to cut short his studies. He settled on his family's estate, where he researched the calculus of probability, the physical sciences, and forest management. Appointed keeper of the royal botanical garden (Jardin du Roi) in 1739, he was also assigned the cataloging of the royal natural history collections, an undertaking that grew into his comprehensive work Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1804), an attempt to account for all known flora and fauna, of which he published 36 of the proposed 50 volumes before his death. He was ennobled in 1773.