Mary Terrall. Catching Nature in the Act

Mary Terrall's latest book is a meticulously researched and beautifully written account of the observational and experimental practice of natural history during the first half of the eighteenth century in France. It is in part an attempt to rehabilitate Terrall's central figure, René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757), a naturalist often viewed through the eyes of his more famous rival and successor, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, who mocked Réaumur's painstakingly detailed descriptions of insects by remarking in Histoire naturelle: Générale et particulière (1753) that “a bee should not occupy more space in the head of a naturalist than it does in Nature” (vol. 4, p. 92). Terrall makes a strong case that Réaumur's practice of natural history was not nearly as myopic as Buffon suggested. On the contrary, he took experimental physics as his model, and approached natural history as a hands-on form of problem solving, adopting many of the techniques and instruments of physics and chemistry. But the book is by no means limited to Réaumur. Given the collaborative nature of Réaumur's practice of natural history and the far-flung networks of correspondence and trade it involved, Terrall is able to introduce a host of other fascinating figures and stories.

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