Franc. Levaillant

Aquatint engraving published in Zurich. Francois Levaillant (1753 - 1824) was a French author, explorer, naturalist, zoological collector, and noted ornithologist. He described many new species of birds based on collection he made in Africa and several birds are named after him. He was among the first to use colour plates for illustrating birds and opposed the use of binomial nomenclature introduced by Linnaeus. In his 'Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets' he contained references to a number of Australian parrots viewed by le Vaillant in captivity in the Netherlands.