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HEN George III. and Louis XV. were on the thrones of England and France respectively, there was born one of the world's greatest naturalists. Georges Chrétien Léopold Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier was born on 23rd August 1769, at Montbéliard, in the Department of Doubs, then belonging to Würtemberg. His father, an officer and a Protestant, retired in order to escape religious persecution, and settled in the town previously mentioned. He had three sons—the eldest died young, the second became the hero of our story, and the third was Frédéric Cuvier (1772-1838), the naturalist.

Georges Cuvier, on account of his delicate constitution, was first taught by his mother an excellent and praise-worthy woman. At ten years of age he went to school, and there acquired an excellent knowledge of Greek, Latin, mathematics, and other subjects; and at the age of fourteen the Duke of Würtemberg sent him to the Academy of Stuttgart. He had studied Buffon, and thereby became acquainted with the natural history of