Beddall, Azara Isolated Genius

The Isolated Spanish Genius -Myth or Reality?
Fklix de Azara and the Birds of Paraguay
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
17 Gmiston Drive
West Chester, Pennsylvania 19380
In 1802 the Spanish naturalist Felix de Azara dedicated his work

on the quadrupeds of Paraguay to his brother Jose Nicolis, long-time
representative of the king and ambassador to the Vatican and more
recently the Spanish ambassador in Paris, with the following words:
My dear Nicolis: Hardly were we born than our parents separated
us, without our having seen or conversed with one another during
the course of our lives except accidentally in Barcelona for the short
space of two days.
Our fortunes have met with a like separation. You have lived in
thegreat world;and on account ofyour high positions, talent, works,
and virtues, you have become worthy of esteem inside and outside
of Spain. But I, without having arrived at a visible employment, and
without occasion to make myself known to you or anyone else, have
spent the twenty best years of my life in the farthest corner of the
earth, forgotten even by my friends, without books or rational con-
versation, and traveling continually through immense and terrifying
wildernesses and forests, communicating only with the birds and
wild beasts. Of these, therefore, I have written the history, which
I send and dedicate to you so that through it you may know me,
or at least that you may be acquainted with my efforts.’
The feeling of isolation conveyed by these words, a recurrent theme
in Spanish history, has been dismissed by Click and Quinlan as no more
than hyperbole, the literal acceptance of which has led to such “myths”
as that of Azara’s isolation.* The purpose of this paper is twofold: first,
to establish more accurately than heretofore the full extent of Azara’s
1. F&lix dc Azara, Apuntamientos para la historia natural de 10s quadrripedos

del Paragiiay y Rio de la Plata. 2 vols. (Madrid: Impr. de la Viuda de Ibarra,
1802: reprint cd., New York: Arno Press, 1978), 1, dedication. The book is
cited hereafter as Quadnipedos. Unfortunately, the “lndicc de 10s quadrhpedos
descritos” for volume 2 was omitted in the reprinted one-volume edition.
2. Thomas F. Click and David M. Quinlan, “Fhlix de Azara: The Myth of the
Isolated Genius in Spanish Science,” J. Hist. Biol.. 8 (1975). 67-83. For recent
Journalof the History ofBiology, vol. 16, no. 2 (Summer 1983), pp. 225-258.
0022-5010/83/0162/0225$3.40.
0 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Companv.
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
contributions to South American zoology, and second, to examine more

closely his social, scientific, and geographic isolation. The work is based
on detailed study of both published and manuscript sources. Besides the
Quadnipedos just referred to others of Azara’s Spanish texts studied
here are his dpuntamientos para la historia natural de 10s pcixaros de1
Paragiiay y Rio de la Plata, cited here asPkxaros,3 and his unpublished
manuscript “Apuntaciones para la historia natural de las aves de la
provincia de1 Paraguay” (2 vols., 1789) cited here as “Aves”. All
English translations are my own.
AZARA’S PLACE IN NATURAL HISTORY
Azara was born in the tiny village of BarbuAales in the Aragonese

province of Huesca, Spain, on May 18, 1746.4 He studied at the Univer-
sity of Huesca in the provincial capital from 1757 to 1761 and entered
the army in 1764. After attending the military academy in Barcelona
from 1765 to 1767, he was commissioned and began his career as a mili-
tary engineer. Stationed in San Sebastianon the northern coast of Spain,
he was ordered late in 1781 to leave immediately for Lisbon, where he
found that he was to sail at once for South America. From a dispatch
opened after they crossed the equator, he learned that the king had
named him capitrin de fragata because he wanted Azara to be a naval
officer as were his companions. 5 Upon arrival in the port of Montevideo,
the officers learned that they were to take part in determining the
boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions under the
most recent treaty on this long-standing problem, the one signed in
1777. Their principal tasks were to determine the location and course
of various rivers and to prepare the necessary maps. The Portuguese,
however, showed little interest in solving the boundary disputes. Be-
cause of their procrastinations Azara’s stay was prolonged until 180 1,
surveysof Latin American scienceseeMarcel Roche, “Early History of Science

in Spanish America,” Science, I94 (1976), 806-810 ; Gregorio Weinberg, “Sobre
la historia de la tradition cientiflca latinoamericana,” Interciencti, 3 (1978)
72-77.
3. The book is in 3 ~01s. (Madrid: Impr. de la Viuda de Ibarra, 1802-l 805). It
is now available in microfiche (but to libraries only and as part of a collection)
from the Lost Cause Press, Louisville, Kentucky.
4. A more complete account of his life may be found in Barbara G. Beddall,
“ ‘Un Naturalista Original’: Don Felix de Azara, 1746-1821,” J. Hist. Bid., 8
(1975), 15-66; seep. 16 n.2 of that article for other references.
5. Felix de Azara, Viajes por la Amkrica Meridional, trans. Francisco de las
Barras de Aragon (Madrid: EspasaCalpe, 1923; reprint ed., 1969), p. 43. Refer-
ences here are to the 1969 edition. See also note 7.
226
The Isolated Spanish Genius: Felix de Azara
when he was finally ordered home - the boundaries still unsettled.

His first few years in South America were spent in Buenos Aires,
with a trip to a neighboring Portuguese province in August 1783 to
confer about the joint tasks. Ordered to Asuncidn, capital of Paraguay,
to start work on his sections of the border, he arrived there on Febru-
ary 9, 1784, not to return to Buenos Aires until sometime in 1795 or
early 1796.6 From then on he worked on various projects for the
viceroy in connection with reports on fortifications, the resettlement of
an immigrant group on the Brazilian frontier, and the like. Much of
his otherwise idle time was spent in collecting birds and mammals of
the region, as well as in acquiring information on any other aspects
of natural history that he encountered and on Indian tribes.
Upon his return to Spain Azara arranged for the publication of his
@a&z&&s (an earlier version having been published in French in
1801) and his Priruros. A stay of nearly two years with his brother in
Paris, during which he had his first opportunity to meet some important
scientists as well as to study the specimens in the Museum National
d’Histoire Naturelle, ended with Jose Nicola’s’ death in January 1804
and Azara’s consequent return to Spain. A two-volume French transla-
tion of his travels, Voyages dans I’Amhique MPridionale, for which
he had arranged when in Paris, was published there in 1809 by Dentu.’
Added to it as volumes 3 and 4 was an abbreviated French translation
of the Pbxuros by C.-N.-S. Sonnini de Manoncourt, recent editor of
a new edition of Buffon, who operated with a free hand in reorganising
Azara’s text and omitting parts of it. At the time, Azara was distracted
by the Napoleonic invasion of his homeland; his opinion of Sonnini’s
work, or even whether he saw it, is unknown. He died on October
20, 1821 and was buried in the family vault in the cathedral in Huesca.
The Prixaros and the Essais sur I’histoire naturelle des quadrupkdes
de la province du Paraguay” (because it appeared a year earlier, the
French translation takes precedence over the Spanish, in spite of the
6. F&x de Azara, hfemorh sobre el estado rural de1 Rio de la P&a y otros
informes (BuenosAires: Editorial Bajel, 1943). Azara’slast official communica-
tion from Asuncibnwasdated March 17, 1795 (p, 154), and his first from Buenos
AiresJuly 3 1, 1796 (p. 181).
7. The original Spanishappearsto have been lost. A Spanishtranslation from
the French was published in Uruguay in 1845-l 846, and a second, translatedby
Franciscode las Barrasde Aragbn, waspublished in Spainin 1923 as Viajes por la
Amkrica Meridional. The latter does not include either Tadeo Haenke’s essay on
Cochabamba (see note 76) or the Pharos. See also Beddall, “Azara,” pp. 16, 22,
38.
8. In 2 vols., trans. M.-L.-E. Moreau de Saint-M&y (Paris: C. Pougens, 1801).
227
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
fact that it was published “incomplete as it was, without informing me

about it, and against my wishes”)9 both became important sources
for zoologists who based their Linnaean names on Azara’s descriptions.
In each case about half of the recognized forms serve as the base of
the presently accepted scientific names, either specific or subspecific.
Azara described 448 birds in his Pdxaros. This number is reduced to
381 when duplications of sex, age, and plumage are taken into account
(8 remain unidentified), and 178 of them are the types upon which the
scientific names are based, the large majority having been named by
the ornithologist Louis-Jean-Pierre Vieillot, who had supervised the
illustrations of birds for Sonnini’s translation.1° Eliminating domestic
animals from the calculations with regard to mammals, 43 out of 70
identifiable descriptions serve as the base for specific or subspecific
names.”
There were others (Charles Darwin for one) who found Azara’s
work useful, not only for his clear descriptions but also for his informa-
tion on habits. Darwin read the Spanish naturalist in French shortly
after his return home from the Beagle voyage, and he was to refer re-
peatedly to “the accurate Azara” in his works, especially in the Journal
of’ Researches, the volumes on mammals and birds of the Zoology of
the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Beagle’ (parts 2 and 3), The Variation of Ani-
mals and Plants under Domestication, and, in The Descent of Man, to
Azara’s information on South American Indians. There are very few
references to Azara in the Origin of Species.‘*
Another who used Azara’s findings was Alcide d’orbigny, who
followed in Azara’s footsteps during the years 1826 to 1833 and paid
the following tribute to him in the introduction to the volume of his
Voyage dans 1’AmPrique Mkridionale devoted to birds:
Long before our departure for America we studied Felix de Azara

very carefully;and when, much later, our destiny took us to the very
theater of his observations, our first care was to verify, Azara’s book
in hand, all his allegations, many of which were regarded in Europe
as fabulous. Having always considered this writer as an observer as
9. Azara, V&jes,p. 13 1.
10. Based on unpublished research by the author.
1 1. Based on unpublished research by the author.
12. Darwin’s earliest reference to Azara, probably January 1837, is found on
p. 126 of his Red Notebook; see Sandra Herbert, ed., 7he Red Notebook of Char-
les Darwin (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1980), pp. 9-l 1, 63. For other
information on Darwin and Azara see Beddall, “Azara,” pp. 30-32.45-51, 53,55.
accurate as he was conscientious about all the animals that he saw,

we soon recognized, not without a secret satisfaction to our vanity,
that we had not exaggerated his merit in the least; and most parti-
cularly in what concerns his remarks on the customs and habits of
the animals.r3
An achievement of a different order was Azara’s critique of Count

de Buffon’s well-known Histoire naturelle, g&z&ale et particulitire,
which he read after his return to Buenos Aires. By that time he had
become such a knowledgeable naturalist himself that he could usefully
criticize one of the most prominent European naturalists, a remarkable
feat for this naturalista original.
Given this level of accomplishment, it becomes imperative to look
more closely at the circumstances under which Azara’s work was
carried out - the more so because Azara has been overlooked and his
work neglected (although not in Latin America or Spain). A principal
reason for this is that Azara’s accomplishment has never before been
measured, although his research has successfully withstood scientific
scrutiny. It has only recently become possible to assesshis work on
birds, with the publication in 1979 of volume 8 of Peters’ Check-List,
as well as a second edition of volume 1. Some of this neglect may also
be traced to the fact that few scientists are fluent in Spanish, and
Azara’s original works remain unread. Worse yet, Azara has had some
bad luck. One example is the antagonistic attitude displayed by Sonnini
in his translation of the Pbxaros. Another is the rather too frequent
omission of his name in the Check-List of Birds of the World by James
L. Peters and Coauthors, in particular in volumes 1 to 7, written by
Peters himself (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931-
1951).
Overall, Azara is credited in the Check-List with type descriptions
in 129 cases, but this attribution has been dropped in 49 other cases
(mostly by Peters, 14 of them in volume 7 alone) and the locality,
usually “Paraguay ,” substituted instead. Tallying these substitutions
against the original sources shows that Azara was credited at the time
with the type description. Perhaps Peters was rushing to finish and
found this an easy way to simplify his work. Whatever the explanation,
the situation is regrettable because proof of the quality and importance
of Azara’s descriptions lies in the numerous scientific names later
13. Alcide d’orbigny, Voyage duns I’Amhique Mkridionale (Paris: Pitois-

Levrault, etc., 1835-1844), IV, pt. 3, i-ii.
229
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
based on them, without benefit either of illustrations or of the speci-

mens he had sent to Madrid.
ISOLATION, MYTH OR REALITY?
Examining the social network that connects people is one approach

to studying questions of the kind posed here, and it was one of the
methods adopted by Click and Quinlan.14 This procedure may indeed
have its uses, but unless it is applied with care the information produced
may be misleading. In the present case references to names mentioned
in Azara’s works have simply been counted, while the references them-
selves have in no way been evaluated, leading to a serious skewing of
the results. Furthermore, neither the numbers involved (except in the
case of Pedro Blas Noseda) nor the page references are given, making it
difficult for a reader to judge the validity of the conclusions. Three
names are listed as those mentioned most frequently in the Pbxuros and
the Quadnipedos: Noseda, Isidro Guerra, and Pedro Melo de Portugal.
There is no denying Noseda’s importance. Azara himself claimed
that Pedro Blas Noseda, curate of San Ignacio Guazu, an Indian village
some hundred miles northeast of Corrientes, was his “only correspon-
dent in matters of birds and quadrupeds.“15 But it was not Noseda who
instilled in Azara a deep interest in birds following their first meeting in
1784.16 Rather, Noseda, as the only person interested, was recruited
and trained in his methods by Azara - although not until 1788.
Moreover, measuring Noseda’s contribution by counting the number
of times his name is mentioned leads to considerable overstatement of
that contribution. For instance, according to Click and Quinlan, most
of the 115 such mentions in the Pixuros “are Noseda’s descriptions
of birds not closely examined by Azara himself.“” The facts are other-
wise. Noseda described 70 birds that he thought were new, but Azara
already had most of them (all but 10, in fact).r8 Noseda’s descriptions
of these 10, which Azara never saw, were included in the Pbxaros. In
14. Glick and Quinlan, “Myth,” pp. 68-73.

15. F&x de Azara, Viajes inkditos de D. F&c de Azara desde Santa-Fe ri la
Asunci&, al interior de1 Paraguay, y li 10s pueblos de Misiones, con una noticia
preliminar por el general D. Bartolom6 Mitre (Buenos Aires: Impr. de Mayo,
1873), p. 248. At the end of November 1787, Azara went hunting with Noseda
for a few days.
16. Click and Quinlan, “Myth,” p. 7 1.
17. Ibid., p. 72.
18. Azara, Pkxaros, I, iv.
230
addition, there were 5 other birds with which Azara was familiar but
which he did not describe; their descriptions are also Noseda’s.19
Beyond this, Azara added Noseda’s descriptions of chicks, albinos,
and so on to 11 others, and a short quote to 8 more. The rest are no
more than comments. Finally, there are multiple mentions of Noseda’s
name in some 22 accounts. Clearly the 115 mentions do not all carry
equal weight. A similar variation can be found in Noseda’s contribu-
tions to the Quadtipedos.
By contrast, the contributions of another priest, Isidro Guerra, are
inconsequential indeed. Among a few other details about hummingbirds,
he told Azara that he had seen them eat spiders, an observation repeated
a few pages later. His only other contribution to the Pdxuros was to tell
Azara about the plumage changes of kelp gulls that he had raised.20 His
contribution to the Quodrripedos was even smaller: he told Azara about
a pregnant armadillo that he kept in his cell, which gave birth to nine
young - information that is also repeated some pages later.21
When it comes to Pedro Melo de Portugal, governor of Paraguay
(1778-1787) and later viceroy in Buenos Aires (17951797), the con-
tributions were actually reversed. Rather than his giving Azara speci-
mens as claimed,22 Azara gave them to him. To quote Azara: “Later
when I was in Buenos Aires, an armadillo of this species [giant arma-
dillo (PLiodontes maximus, no. 53)] arrived from Paraguay for the
Archdeacon don Josef Roman Cabezales.. . . The above-mentioned
archdeacon gave it to me, and I presented it to D. Pedro Melo de
Portugal, along with some live Mulitas, Pichiis, and Matacos [other
species of armadillos], which he sent to the Prince of Peace [Manuel
Godoy] .” As he noted some pages later, two people had given him a
total of nine Pichiis [little armadillo (Zuedvus pichiy, no. 59)], “and
I kept them alive for some days with water and raw meat, until I could
present them to the viceroy D. Pedro Melo de Portugal, who sent them
to Spain, some alive and some dissected.“23 Furthermore, Melo de
19. Azara’snumbers14,21, 26,56, 101, 111, 115,319, 333, 378; and 16, 37,
45, 173, 307. Of these, numbers 101, 319, 16,45, 173 are all type descritptions.
20. Azara, Pixaros, II, 470, 475;III, 340-341.
21. Azara,Quadnipedos, II, 104, 157-l 58.
22. Ghck and Quinlan, “Myth,” p. 73.
23. Azara, Quadnipedos, II, 114,159. Melo de Portugal’s contributions to the
Prixaros (II, 424, 4731, not mentioned by Click and Quinlan, were hardly more
substantial, nor were those in the “Aves,” I, 76,93,96, 100. Of course Azara gave
neither English nor Latin names to any of his animals. He did number his animals
consecutively in the Quudnipedos, though not in the Essais.
231
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
Portugal was not even in South America during the ten years from 1788
to 1795 and could make no contributions of any kind during this
period.
Tracing this network of people thus leads not to the conclusion
that Azara received the active support of an “emergent,” if “very
constricted” local scientific community,24 but that he was indeed
isolated. Over a period of twenty years no single individual other than
Noseda provided more than two or three specimens or bits of infor-
mation. Because in most cases their acquisition of specimens was ac-
cidental, this does not indicate any serious participation by the donors
either in Azara’s projects or in natural history pursuits in general.
Noseda was, as Azara claimed, his “only correspondent” in these
matters. (A brief but important exchange with Antonio Pineda, natura-
list with the Malaspina expedition, will be considered later.)
Investigation into the matter of books leads to similar conclusions.
When Azara was first in Buenos Aires, he may have had access to the
library of Juan Baltazar Maciel ~ a large library containing over a thou-
sand volumes.25 Whether or not it contained books on natural history,
it was unavailable to him during his lengthy stay in Paraguay (where
virtually all his work was done); by the time he returned to Buenos
Aires, this priest had long since died.
Azara’s single source of natural history information was Buffon’s
Histoire naturelle, g&h-ale et particulikre, and this not until after his
return to Buenos Aires. At that time his fellow dernarcadores Martin
Boneo and Pedro Cerviiio gave or lent him volumes of the famous
encyclopedia, some in Spanish and some in the original French.26 By
24. Glick and Quinlan, “Myth,” pp. 70-71.

25. Ibid., p. 73. See also Ione S. Wright and Lisa M. Nekhom, Historical Dic-
tionary ofArgentina (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978), pp. 519-520.
26. Boneo “‘gave” him twelve volumes of the Spanish translation compiled by
Jose Clavijo y Fajardo, vice-director of the Real Gabinete (Azara, Essuis, I, xliii-
xliv), and Cerviiio “lent” him the rest in French, including eighteen volumes on
birds (ibid., xliv-xiv; Azara, P&aros, I, vi). After finishing what became the Essuis,
Azara read the translated volumes in the original French (Azara, Quadrtipedos, I,
vi-vii). From his remarks, and from the footnoted references in the Quadtipedos
and Pkuzros, it appears that the French volumes were part of the second edition
of Buffon.
Glick and Quinlan state that Melo de Portugal also mailed Azara French and
Spanish volumes of Buffon (“Myth,” p. 74 and n16), but they have misinter-
preted the Spanish: “recibi orden de1 Virrey para baxar de1 Paraguay a Buenos
Aires: donde se me franque6 una Historia natural” (Quudnipedos, I, iv-v) means
“I received an order from the viceroy to go down from Paraguay to Buenos Aires;
232
this time, however, much of Azara’s work was completed, and only a
few animals remained to be collected. Among them were fifteen mam-
mals, seven from around Buenos Aires (some of these may date back
to his early days there) and eight from his travels on the Brazilian
frontier, where he spent many months in 1800 and 1801 (the latter
mammals of course not found in the Essais). Also added were twenty-
seven more birds, of which twenty-one came from the Buenos Aires
region, four from the Brazilian frontier, and two from Ascension Island
on the voyage home. While continuing with his collecting, Azara was
also assiduously studying Buffon and discovering to his surpirse that
he often disagreed with the renowned French naturalist.
Azara’s absorption in his work had other facets. When he spoke of
communicating with the birds and wild beasts, he meant it literally,
for he often kept live animals caged or free in his room, or occasionally
in a corral. When he received them live, he attempted to keep them
living for as long as possible. Altogether, at one time or another, he
cared for one or more of thirty-five species of birds and seven species
of quadrupeds (the majority of them by 1789). Some, such as various
shore birds, refused to eat and died within days. Others accepted the
raw meat, bread, or cracked maize which he offered them, and they
sometimes lived for months. Small birds such as finches, sparrows,
saltators, or tanagers were usually kept caged. Other roamed freely
about his room. Among those kept for some time were a rufous mot-
mot (Baryphthengus ruficapillus, no. 52) a rufous homer0 (Furnarius
mfus, no. 221) a common potoo (Nyctibius griseus, no. 308) a tataupa
tinamou (Crypturellus tataupa, no. 329) and an Eskimo curlew (Nu-
menius borealis, no. 397). 27 With live birds at hand Azara was able to
make observations on their habits and plumages.
A young spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata) was kept for sixty-
five days. “I maintained it for this period of time,” Azara wrote, “on
raw meat and small birds, which, being the size of a sparrow or slightly
where a natural history was sent to me.” Se mefranqued is a passive construction

in which the agent is neither named nor implied. If “where he sent me a natural
history” had been meant, it would read “donde me franqued una Historia natu-
ral”. “He sent it to me” would read ‘me la franqued.” It appears that the French
and Spanish volumes referred to on p. v of the Quadrripedos are those given or
lent to Azara by Boneo and Cerviiio.
21. Azara, Pixaros, I, 243-244; II, 222-223,529-530; III, 49,311. Ah except
the account of the live common potoo date back to the “Aves”: I, 126; II, 55;
I, 213-214, 62. Azara numbered the birds consecutively in the Prixaros, but not in
the “Aves.”
233
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
larger, it swallowed whole, beginning by crushing the skull and ending

by gulping the feet. At the same time I kept another young owl of the
preceding species [great horned owl (Bubo virginianus)], both of the
same age and size, so that I had occasion to make . . . comparisons.“28
Of a burrowing owl (Speofyto cunicukzria) he remarked: “I had one
free in my room for a long time, giving it raw meat, which it seized and
swiftly carried behind the clothes trunk, where it swallowed it; once I
gave it cooked meat and it did not like it: neither did it eat fat: it
climbed on everything, but as soon as I moved about, it jumped and
ran to hide itself.“29 A rufous-bellied thrush (Turdus rufiventris, no.
79) was more trouble. “I also kept one free in my room, where each
time that I entered or moved about, it flew all around, dropping its
excrement in the air and dirtying the walls so much that in a short
time I had to let it go and whitewash the walls anew.“”
Among quadrupeds, the armadillos have already been mentioned.
A castrated puma (Felix concolor, no. 12) which Noseda had had for
a year, Azara kept for four months - tied, although it was as tame as a
dog. In addition, he and Noseda kept a young maned wolf (Chrysocyon
brachyurus, no. 28) for a month, until it escaped. There were also a
number of agoutis (Dasyproctu azurae, no. 36). Of still another mam-
mal, the Brazilian rabbit (Sylvilagus brasiliensis, no. 37) Azara wrote:
“I have had as many as twenty adults, seven of them alive, which I
let loose in my room at different times. I gave them cumalote, which
is an aquatic plant, and they did not want to eat it; they lived on mal-
lows, forage, radish leaves and other herbs. I had various birds in the
same place that I was feeding on maize; and as my rabbits ate all that
they wasted, they all perished.“31
One quadruped that Azara was successful in keeping longer was a
tree porcupine (Coendou prehensilis, no. 41):
I let one that had been caught as an adult loose in my room, and I
maintained it for a year without water, because it does not drink.
When frightened it ran as fast as it could, while I overtook it walk-
ing, because it does not know how to gallop. . . All of its actions
are torpid: its spirit is quiet and so tranquil that sometimes twenty-
four to forty-eight hours passed without its changing its location or
28. Azara “Aves,” I, 59.

29. Ibid., b. 62.
30. Ibid., II, 2;timros, I, 336.
31. Azara, Quadnipedos, I, 123-124,266-267;11, 21-23. 33.
234
altering its position one jot. It never moved except to eat, and this
was ordinarily at nine in the morning and four in the afternoon.
Only once did I notice that it moved at night, although I consider
it a nocturnal animal. During its first days it settled itself upon the
back of a chair and never on anything flat; but one day, having
climbed through the window and settled itself on the edge of the
shutter, it never afterwards looked for any other place. There,
without any more movement than a statue, it spent the entire time
that it did not descend to eat. . . . One day I put a small, dead house
mouse in its food, and when it came upon it, it was so frightened
that it hastily returned to its place. It always did the same thing
when any small bird, of the smaller ones that I kept live and free,
approached where it was eating.”
The Paraguayan frontier on which Azara spent so many years was

a far cry from Europe. Asuncion, the capital and Azara’s headquarters,
had a population of just over seven thousand, while that of the whole
province did not exceed one hundred thousand Indians and Spaniards.33
Many of the small towns and villages through which Azara traveled
were inhabited by Indians originally settled there by the Jesuits.34
Typical of such settlements was San Ignacio Guazu, of which Noseda
was the priest:
In the afternoon [of August 25, 17841 . . . we continued along the

gently rolling road towards San Ignacio, some seven leagues distant.
. . . It is located upon a smooth little hill of colored earth surrounded

by an excavation or ditch made by the Jesuits to guard the village
against the Indians from the Chaco. . . . The plaza is a square 250
vuras [a vara is less than a meter] on a side, the church and the
college or dwelling of the Jesuits occupying the southern side. The
eastern and western sides are occupied along their length by houses
interrupted by another street. Behind these houses are others that
are parallel, and beyond on each side is a plaza opening towards
the north. Six parallel rows of houses point northwards from the
32. Ibid., II, 55-57.

33. Azara, Viajes, pp. 298, 300-301.
34. See Rodoifo R. Schuller, Prblogo to Geograjisica y esfkrica de las provin-
cias de1 Paraguay y Misiones Guaranies by don FBlix de Azara (Montevideo: Tal-
leres A. Barreiro y Ramos, 1904), pp. Ixix-lxxii, for Azara’s itinerary in the years
1784-1787.
235
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
side of the plaza opposite the college, leaving spacious streets be-
tween them. All the buildings are covered with tiles, and they also
have a covered corridor along the street supported by wooden posts.
Inside, the houses are divided [into rooms] of seven by seven varas
in order to separate the families, who have no other quarters than
the one room seven varas square in which they sleep, eat, and cook
without either a chimney or second story.
. . . At the time of the expulsion [of the Jesuits in 17671, there were
2, 168 people; today there are 867. Their property consists of 12,000
head of cattle and 4,000 mate trees in a garden close by the village;
but they are neglected as are a good part of the buildings, which are
falling to the ground.35
Presumably it was on this visit, a trip undertaken to relieve the enforced

idleness brought about by Portuguese delays,% that Azara and Noseda
first met.
Seven years later the Portuguese still had not appeared, and Azara
requested in a 1791 letter to the then-viceroy, Nicolas de Arredondo,
that his group be withdrawn, mainly to save the treasury the cost of
maintaining it:
I do not know what ideas the Portuguese may have to have taken
years of a man’s lifetime in deciding to inform us that they will
come: and after they have said so, I fear that the present century
will have to pass without their appearance here. I leave to one side
how painful the consideration is to me that I am spending the best
part of my life and its most useful years in exile, seeing that I must
finish the rest of my existence uselessly or that I will have to request
my retirement from this veteran detachment, because men are not
eternal; and I offer for your consideration only the costs that the
treasury is suffering.37
It was not until four or five years after this that Azara was finally re-
called to Buenos Aires.
Azara’s sense of isolation could only have been heightened by the
35. Azara, Viajes inkditos, pp. 227-229 [sic 1 ; should read pp. 127-l 29.
36. Azara, Memoria, p. 93.
37. ibid., p. 120.
236
sharp contrast between his life and that of his older brother, Jose Ni-
colas, friend to kings and popes. 38 Jose Nicolh was away at school in
Huesca and Salamanca from the time of his younger brother’s birth,
and their only meeting before 1802, a brief one of two days, took
place in Barcelona sometime between the departure of Jose Nicolls
from Madrid in December 1765 to take up his appointment as general
agent and representative of the king in Rome and his arrival in the Holy
City on January 23, 1766. At the end of 1784 he added “minister
plenipotentiary” to his other titles, and he continued in these Vatican
posts until 1798.
Attracted to each other by a community of interests including ar-
cheology, he and the pope, Pius VI, became friends. “It is more than
well known,” Jose Nicolis later wrote, “that for many years I was the
favorite of Pius VI and on many subjects his confidant.‘lss The Na-
poleonic invasion of Italy in 1796 brought him into contact with the
future emperor himself, with whom he was later to be on friendly
terms, when he was sent to Bologna to negotiate with Napoleon on
the pope’s behalf. In February 1798 Rome was declared a republic
and Pius imprisoned and exiled. His Spanish friend continued to the
last to plead for the health and safety of the aged pope and to work on
arrangements for the next conclave of cardinals to elect his successor,
in order to avoid a schism in the church.
By April Jose Nicolis was on his way to Paris, having been named
almost immediately as ambassador in the French capital. Caught in
a maelstrom of political machinations both Spanish and French, he was
removed from this position twice, in August 1799 (although he did not
return to Spain until November) and, after his reappointment in De-
cember 1800, three years later. This second dismissal came after he had
three times requested to be relieved, and barely a month before his
death on January 26,1804, at the age of seventy-three.
Jose Nicolas was a man of diversified interests and talents. Besides
participating actively in archeological digs, he collected works of art
and acquired an extensive library, reportedly reaching some twenty
thousand volumes. His own literary output was enormous, including
books and commentaries on various historical and artistic subjects, as
38. For biographical details see Carlos E. Corona Baratech, JosP Nicokis de
Azara, un embajador esplfiol en Roma (Zaragoza: lnstituci& “Fernando el
Cat&co,” 1948); P. Besques, “La premikre ambassade de D. Josit Nicolb de
Azara $ Paris,” Bull. hispanique. 3 (1901), paged as a separate.
39. Corona Baratech, Josh Nicohis, p. 268.
237
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
well as translations (mainly from classical Latin authors) of some works

of which he also sponsored magnificent editions from the Bodoni
pressesin Parma.
By comparison, his connection with natural history was slight. Dur-
ing a two-year stay in Spain (1774-1776) he assisted Irishman William
(or Guillermo) Bowles with the publication in Spanish of Bowles’
accounts of his travels in Spain.4o These dealt principally with mines
and minerals, there is little in them about animals or plants. Jose Ni-
colas was also asked to search in Rome for the original manuscript of
the sixteenth-century explorer of Mexico, Francisco Hernandez, but
was unable to locate it.41
From the evidence, then, there were many grounds upon which
Felix de Azara could justifiably have felt himself to be isolated. True,
he knew the local people; he was, after all, an important functionary
himself. His natural history activity did arouse some interest, and speci-
mens and information were occasionally given to him by various in-
dividuals. But except for the help he received from Noseda, Azara
worked essentially on his own, and in a remote land far from his home.
Finally, something should be said about where Azara might fit into
George Basalla’s model of “The Spread of Western Science.“42 Accord-
ing to Basalla, this process involved three phases: the first was the
period of exploration by Europeans, including aid and direction from
home and, subsequently, publication there; the second, a period of
dependence on European science, and the third, independence from it.
Azara would seem to fall naturally into the first phase. Nevertheless,
40. Guillermo Bowles, Introduccibn a la historia natural y a la geografia fisica

de Espafia, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Impr. Real, 1782); 3rd ed. (Madrid: Impr. Real,
1789). “It would have been very difficult to publish [his travels],” wrote Jose
Nicol& in the Prologue (p. 16), “if 1, who of course recognized their importance,
had not lent him my aid; for he had not reached the stage of possessing the Casti-
lian language to the point that he could do it himself.”
41. Enrique Belt&n, “Una polkmica sobre Francisco Hern&ndez y su obra en
1785,” Anales de la Sociedad Mexicana de Historia de la Ciencia y de la Tecno-
logia, no. 5 (1979), 49-73. This contains letters from and to Jose Nicolis about
the Hern&tdez manuscript.
42. George Basalla, “The Spread of Western Science: A Three-Stage Model
Describes the Introduction of Modern Science into any Non-European Nation,”
Science, I.56 (1967) 611-622. I should like to thank Frank N. Egerton for di-
recting my attention to this paper. For other opinions on this point see Glick and
Quinlan, “Myth.”
238
The Isolated Spanish Genius: FClix de Azara
he is in many ways an anomaly, a special case outside the usual system,

and as such does not constitute a refutation of Basalla’stheory. Spain’s
role was also unique, as described below.
To begin with, Azara was sent to South America in his capacity as
a military engineer, not as a naturalist. Because of this and the sudden-
ness of the orders for his departure from Spain, he had no opportunity
to prepare himself in any way. In contrast, the members of the Mala-
spina and Ruiz-Pav6n expeditions (among others sent out by Spain at
this time) were selected for their posts as naturalists and supplied with
ample libraries to aid them in their tasks.43 Thus, when Azara found
himself with time to spare, he lacked both the books that he might
otherwise have had and appropriate connections in Spain. Indeed, he
feared that the authorities might stop him if they knew what he was
up to:
As I began to be aware of their [the Portuguese] stratagem and saw

that instead of working to fm the boundaries they wanted only to
prolong this operation into infinity by wasting their time, by con-
sulting the court, and by useless and ridiculous pretexts, in order to
prevent carrying it out, I considered how to extract the greatest pos-
sible advantage from the long period that these delays were going to
provide me. As I expected that the viceroys would give me neither
permission nor help, in the face of the fear that I would abuse their
indulgence to the detriment of my principal obligation, which con-
sisted in the f=ing of the boundaries, I resolved to carry on alone
with this enterprise and with the expenses that it would occasion,
and to travel without informing them, but without losing from sight
for one instant the objective with which I was charged.““
After receipt of a request from the then-governor of Paraguay,

Joaquin Al&, that he be allowed to investigate the natural history of
Paraguay in company with Azara, the authorities in Spain gave the
two men permission for such activities in mid-1788, “it being well
43. Barbara G. Beddall, “Scientific Books and Instruments for an Eighteenth-

Century Voyage around the World: Antonio Pineda and the Malaspina Expedi-
tion,” J. Sot. Bibliog. Nat. Hist., 9 (19791, 95-107: Rende Gicklhorn-Wien, Thad-
dius Haenkes Reisen und Arbeiten in Siidamerika (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner,
1966), p. 55 ; Arthur Robert Steele, Flowers for the King: The Expedition of Ruiz
and Pavdn and rhe Flora of Peru (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1964),
p. 59.
44. Azara, Vbjes, p. 44.
239
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
understood,” as far as Azara was concerned, “that this be done without

harm to his assignment to the border commission [which, in the ab-
sence of the Portuguese, consisted mainly in locating and mapping the
rivers in the disputed region] and only in the brief, unoccupied periods
that this might allow him.“45 Alas had also requested assistance from
the new museum in Madrid, which seems not to have been forthcoming.
One can only conclude that a brilliant and active mind inspired
Azara to seize the opportunities available when the work he expected
to do did not fill his time, and that his training in mathematics and
engineering led him to perceive the necessity for being meticulous and
systematic in his descriptions. The initiative came from Azara himself,
with very little encouragement from his compatriots in South America
or in Spain (an important component of Basalla’s phase 1).
If the initiative, or even whole-hearted approval, had come from
Spain, Azara would likely have been provided, as others were, with
some of the necessary books. Instead, he received no more than a con-
ditional approval, and no books or information. Perhaps this was as
much as could be expected under the terms of his assignment as one of
the leaders of the border commission, which clearly had priority.
Thus, in spite of an undoubted increase in interest in scientific mat-
ters in Spain during this period, 46 Azara could later say that he did this
work “for the pleasure I derive from being useful,” adding that he did
not expect to see his work valued in Spain (‘where the taste for the
sciences, and especially natural history, is absolutely cast aside”) but in
France.47 Indeed, it was in France that his work was first appreciated,
and the French who made the most use of it.
By this turn of events Azara, the outsider, was to have a greater
45. Francisco dc las Barras de Aragon, “Una carta de D. Felix de Azara y

algunas noticias de sus trabajos, seghn documentos de1 Archive de hrdias de Sevil-
la,” Boletin de la real sociedad espaliola de historia natural, I.5 (1915), p. 363.
The most nearly comparable cast is that of Jose Celestino Mutis, who was physi-
cian to the viceroy of New Granada. More than twenty years of effort went into
his attempt to have himself named head of a botanical expedition in Colombia,
an aim finally achieved in 1783. But the result was that publication of his Flora
did not even begin until 1954. Set Steele, Flowers, pp. 4446.
46. Set Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958) and Steele, Flowers, which of course
emphasizes botany.
47. Azara. Viajes. p. 36 (letter to C.-A. Walckenaer in Paris, July 2.5, 1805).
Azara was not the only one to feel this way. Joseph Dombey, who was part of the
Ruiz-Pavon expedition, made virtually the same comment in 1777; see Steele,
Flowers, p. 57.
240
impact on the scientific world than did the members of the Spanish
expeditions. C.-A. Walckenaer, Azara’s French editor, remarked that
“on [Azara’s] return to his own country, his first care was to publish
the only part of his extensive works that could be printed without
court permission, that is to say, the histories of the quadrupeds and
birds.“48 It seems at least possible, in view of the absence of publica-
tions by any of the others, that Azara paid for these publications in
Spanish himself. Possibly, too, he may have owned the rights to them,
since he did the work in his spare time and, sometimes at least, out of
his own pocket.49
Timely publication of the findings of the expeditions was pre-
vented by a series of misfortunes ranging from Malaspina’s arrest and
imprisonment on political grounds to the increasingly troubled political
situation in Spain that accompanied the Napoleonic invasion and the
reign of Ferdinard VII. This was a catastrophic period for Spanish
science, as scientific and intellectual activity collapsed.50
Basalla considers both Spain and Portugal to be special cases, not
least because “modern science [had] not been extensively cultivated”
by either of them.51 What seems to have happened, in terms of Basalla’s
model, is that with the failure to publish the findings of the expedi-
tions, phase 1 was never completed by Spain, to the detriment of both
Spanish and Latin American science. As a matter of fact, the develop-
ment of Spanish science has been episodic at best. One must look
back to the early sixteenth century to find a time when science really
48. Charles-Athanase Walckenaer, biographical introduction to Azara’s Viujes,

p. 28.
49. On the opposite side, the drawings of Mexican plants by Jose Mariano
Moziiio while he was a member of the royal scientific expedition in New Spain
“were legally the property of the king of Spain” (Wilfrid Blunt, The Art ofBoot-
anical Illustration [London: CoUins, 1950 1, p. 170). For an account of the recent
discovery of these and other drawings, now in the possession of the Hunt Institute
for Botanical Documentation, see the Newslerter of the Society for the Bibhogra-
phy of Natural History, no. 11 (August 1981). 6-8.
50. Jose Maria Lopez Piiiero, Ciencia y tkcnica en la sociedad espafiola de 10s
siglos XVfy XVII (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1979). p. 22.
51. Basaha, “‘Western Science,” p. 6 14. For other comments on the develop
ment of science in Spain, in particular in the late eighteenth century, see Barbara
G. Beddall, “Essay Review: Spanish Science and the New World,” J. Hist. Biol.,
I6 (1983), forthcoming (No. 3), which reviews lris H. W. Engstrand, Spanish
Scientists in the New World: The Eiiplzteentlz-Centur~~ E.upeditions (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1981).
241
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
flourished in Spain. This was succeeded by a much longer period during

which scientific activity remained at a very low ebb.**
The effort in the second half of the eighteenth century to bring
Spain back into the mainstream of European science collapsed in the
early nineteenth century. This is particularly evident in Spain’s neglect
of the findings of the expeditions. The institutions that were set up at
that time with the aim of fostering scientific investigations, simply
failed to carry various tasks to completion. Spain had not been able to
develop on a firm enough basis the requisite “institutions and traditions
of a nation with an established scientific culture.“s3
Thus, whatever help or guidance Spain could provide to its poses-
sions overseas in the late eighteenth century soon evaporated, and
neither Spain nor these possessions (soon to declare their political in-
dependence) made the advances that might have been expected. Failure
to complete phase 1 meant that Spain did not play the clearly defined
role in the development of science in the New World that other Euro-
pean powers did, particularly France and Great Britain.
In terms of Basalla’s model, Azara is also a special case, for he
worked on his natural history pursuits almost entirely on his own. It
is true that his Quadrcipedos and Pa’xaros were successfully and oppor-
tunely published, but it seems likely that this was his own doing.
THE BIRDS OF PARAGUAY
Beginning in 1752, efforts were made to set up a museum of natural

science in Madrid; in fact, this was the reason for Bowles’ travels.
With the purchase of a major collection in 1771, the museum finally
was fully organized, although it did not open its doors to the public
until November 1776, under the name Real Gabinete de Historia Na-
tural. Then began an effort to increase the size of the collection, and
orders to this effect were sent not only to provincial officials but also
to the viceroys of overseas possessions.”
Azara had been in Paraguay for nearly four years before any official
notice was taken of what might be called his extracurricular activities.
On November 13, 1787, Joaquin Al&, governor of Paraguay, wrote
52. See tipez Piiiero, Ciencia, where this is clearly brought out.
53. Basalla, “Western Science,” p. 613.
54. For details of the museum’s history see Agustin J. Barreiro, El Museo
National de Cienchs NaturaIes (Madrid: lnstituto de Ciencias Naturales “Jo& de
Acosta,” 1944); Azara, Essais, I, pp. xlvi-xlviin;and Steele, Flowers, pp. 3943.
242
a letter to the marquess of Sonora, the ministro universal de Indias, des-

cribing his travels through the province and remarking on the “new
materials and objects worthy of admiration” to be found there.55 He
went on to say that Azara “has continuously dedicated himself to des-
cribing and observing whatever objects have come to his hand, without
excusing himself from the fatigue of expeditions, as has often occurred,
and as he appears endowed with uncommon intelligence and possesses
knowledge of natural things, according to the reputation he has ac-
quired, he has succeeded in making analyses, observations, and an
examination of various things in his desire to enlarge natural history.”
Within four months he expected to send off a box containing some
petrified objects that he had found, plus a collection of Azara’s birds,
“the majority unknown in Europe even by the naturalist the comte
de Buffon.”
Al& continued with a request: “If you consider my dedication and
his useful, I hope you may be willing to pass the information on to
D. Eugenio Izquierdo, director of the Gabinete de Historia Natural,
so that he may advise us with complete freedom and lend us some do-
cuments that might facilitate this operation for us.” The operation he
had in mind was further investigation into the natural history of the
province, to be undertaken jointly by himself and Azara during their
travels. This cooperative venture seems not to have taken place, for
the only tangible contribution mentioned by Azara as having come
from Al& was a bat caught in the latter’s house.56 Nevertheless, the
outcome of the request was favorable. A decree dated May 26, 1788,
gave official permission for their activities, specifying, however, that
it was “with the warning that the work of the naval officer Azara
should not affect his principal assignment to the border commission.”
Thus Al& seems to have been of practical help to Azara, although
later the two men were not on good terms.
Azara himself wrote on July 13, 1788, that he had not sent his
notes, for lack of someone to copy them, but that he was sending “a
box that includes 84 birds preserved in aguardiente, with their des-
criptions made by me, and I plan to continue shipments of this kind
55. The information on this and the following letters (except for Azara’s
letter of July 13, 1789, see note 58) is taken from Barras de Arag&, “Una carta,”
pp. 361-366. A photocopy of the original letter by Al&s is in the Benson Latin
American Collection at the University of Texasat Austin; I disagree with the in-
terpretation of the sectionof this letter referred to by Click and Quinlan (“Myth,”
p. 75). See also notes 57 and 60.
56. Azara, “Aves,” I, 84.
243
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
regularly as long as I am here. I already have 244 species of birds des-

cribed, along with a number of quadrupeds. 1 occupy my time with
this and in perfecting my geographical and physical knowledge of these
regions, in the interval until I am given something else to do.” The box
apparently contained the birds referred to by Al&. It was shipped on
March 19, 1789, from Buenos Aires to Madrid, where it was transferred
to the Gabinete de Historia Natural on July 22.57
Perhaps as a result of these exchanges, the viceroy, the marquess of
Loreto, “ordered these offices to furnish me a scribe,” as Azara wrote
a year later, on July 13, 1789, to the count of Floridablanca, “and he
ordered me to send him a copy to send to His Majesty.“58 The copy
referred to was Azara’s manuscript in two volumes, “Apuntaciones
para la historia natural de las aves de la provincia de1 Paragiiay,” cited
hereafter as “Aves.” Sent from Buenos Aires on November 25, 1789, it
arrived at the Gabinete de Historia Natural (now the Museo National de
Ciencias Naturales) on March 14, 1790. Both volumes are dated 1789,
the second concluding with the date August 13, 1789. Through a
typographical error, this has been reported as August 13, 1783,59, with
important consequences for the interpretation of Azara’s work ~ of
which more will be said below.
In the same letter of July 13, Azara said that he had also sent “a
collection of 401 small birds.‘160 This was not one shipment, however,
but five boxes sent from Buenos Aires in three shipments, the first
57. See Click and Quinlan, “Myth,” p. 75, where they incorrectly state that
“this collection apparently never reached the museum.” In his prologue to Bar-
reiro, Museo, p. 28, Eduardo Herntidez-Pacheco refers to the receipt by the Real
Gabinete of “numerous shipments from America, like the collection of the birds
of Paraguay sent by D. F&x de Azara,” m apparent reference to this shipment.
Barras de Arag&, “Una carta,” p. 361, also reports its receipt.
58. Barreiro, Museo, p. 36.
59. Enrique Alvarez tipez, Fhlix de Am-a, siglo XVIII (Madrid: M. Aguiiar,
1935), pp. 54-55. The error in this date was repeated in later publications: Julio
C&r Gonzilez, “Apuntes bio-bibliogriticos de don F&x de Azara,” in Azara,
Memoria, p. xcv; Beddall, “Azara,” p. 23, for example.
60. Gtick and Quinlan, “Myth,” pp. 75-76, have confused the numbers of
both birds and shipments. Furthermore, they claim that Clavijo, vice-director of
the museum, “threw the entire shipment [of 401 birds] away because he thought
the specimens improperly described.” No such statement is to be found anywhere
in the source they cite (Barreiro, Museo, p. 36). Indeed (ibid., p. 37), Clavijo
expressed his pleasure in reading Azara’s work, remarking on how useful it would
bc when an American ornithology was written and suggesting that Azara be
exhorted to continue his ornithological labors.
244
being the one already referred to by Al& and by Azara himself. On

September 30, 1789, the viceroy reported that a second shipment of
two boxes had been sent; apparently they did not arrive at the Gabinete
de Historia Natural until February 8, 1790. A third shipment was de-
layed for some reason, and the new viceroy Arredondo reported on
January 28, 1790, that two more boxes had finally been sent off. They
arrived in Madrid on or about May 19, 1790. The birds sent in each
of these five boxes are listed in the contents of the two volumes of the
“Aves.” A sixth box is also listed there, but no record of what happened
to it has been found.
There is no way to determine exactly when Azara began to collect

birds (in the prologue to his Qua&-&e&s he speaks of having collected
mammals since the year 1782) but it was not until after his arrival in
Paraguay. The mistake in the date of volume 2 of the “Aves” (1783
instead of 1789)6r makes it appear that he must have started very early
in order to have completed a volume before leaving Buenos Aires for
Paraguay, and it casts doubt on his complaints of isolation and lack of
books. All of the birds in the “Aves” are from Paraguay, however.
Some are identified as having been described when Azara was a begin-
ner, and the locations given for a few of them prove beyond doubt
that he was already in Paraguay.
Equally important is the light the manuscript throws on Noseda and
his role in Azara’s work. Noseda first began to describe birds for Azara
in October 1788, after the latter had recruited him and spent two
months training him. Of the Gavih de Nosedu Azara wrote: “This
is the first description that the priest of San Ignacio don Pedro Blas
Noseda made, calling this bird Gavilin Taguatb de Martinete; but as
this name fits all the birds of this genus, I have changed it in considera-
tion of the fact that the said priest is my only correspondent in ornitho-
logical matters.” Noseda himself wrote that he killed the bird on Octo-
ber 13, 1788.62
At this time Azara thought he might soon be leaving Paraguay, and
it was for this reason that he selected Noseda as his successor. He seems
for a time even to have given up the thought of collecting more birds
himself, but as his “accidental delay” in Paraguay continued, so too
did his collecting. The specimens collected by Noseda during the period
from October 1788 to June 1789 were included in box no. 5. Box no.
6 1. See note 59.

62. Azara, “Aves,” I, 22.
245
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
6, the fate of which is unknown, contained the birds collected by Azara

in June and July of 1789.
Azara described his early efforts in the following “notice to the
reader”:
Traveling through the provinces of Paraguay and Misiones and the

district of Corrientes, without more purpose than my own instruc-
tion and that of making a good map of them, I was curious enough
to describe, without selection of species, all the birds and quadru-
peds that I was able to buy and kill. I collected these descriptions
separately from my geographical pursuits, with no other idea than to
hand them over to our Real Gabinete in Spain or to someone with
knowledge of this material who might value them or burn them
according to what he thought proper. I had and have a great lack of
confidence in my work, and everyone else should also knowing that
I do not have, nor could have, any knowledge: I am a soldier who
has never looked carefully at an animal until now: I lack books and
all means of acquiring information and instruction: I am an untaught
naturalist [un naturalista original] who is ignorant even of the ter-
minology, and a large part of my notes have been made without
chair, table, or bench, with the torpor and ill-humor that accompany
excessive fatigue, and with other duties that I considered my princi-
pal ones.
In the beginning, as one absolutely ignorant, I did not realize the dif-
ficulties of this work; but when I reached one hundred birds they
began to make themselves felt: I saw that it was necessary that my
paper work be accompanied by the individuals described, and I
found no way to do this, nor even to sketch them: however, I began
to soak the smaller species in brandy. I knew that ordinary methods
were not enough for acquiring many species, because as this region
is full of the most densely tangled forests, even a gun is of no use,
although one enters [the forest] because birds show themselves at
a distance of eight paces or less. For this reason I arranged with
twenty boys that I would pay them a peso fuerte for every eight
small birds of those that I had already described; double if they were
new, triple if they were beautiful or unusual, and quadruple if they
were large: but if they brought them to me putrified or mutilated,
I would give them only half. By this single although costly method
I have succeeded in obtaining a great many species that would never
be acquired by any other means, because they are invariably hidden
246
in the depths of a closed wood where thay can only be had by means
of pellets from a crossbow or traps.
I also saw that my accidental delay here would not allow time to
collect all the kinds, and much less to investigate their habits. To
guard against this difficulty I determined to furnish myself with a
successor; and among all those who live here I found only one per-
son who combined the qualities of robustness, of a good hunter, of
enthusiasm, talent, and patience: this was don Pedro Blas Noseda,
curate of the village of San Ignacio Guazu. I had him come to this
capital, and in the two months that we hunted together I taught him
about the birds that 1 knew, about the way in which I measured,
described, and named them, and about everything that I could. The
said don Pedro made me an offer, that if they gave him ammunition
and a small allowance for traveling, he would continue until he ex-
hausted the birds of the country. I advised the director of our Real
Gabinete about this, and I do not know what the outcome will be;
but in the meantime I am providing for the said priest, who is al-
ready working with the greatest enthusiasm, and he has sent me his
first descriptions so that I might see his attempts, and I have placed
them among my own.
I already had 370 species, all from here and none common to both
worlds when, bored with the annoyances and difficulties, I aban-
doned this work on September 28, 1788, and to amuse myself I
tried to unite the species that had known analogies into genera.63
I was planning to leave this work for some European naturalist on
account of considering it beyond my capacity. I thought that if in
order to generalize I adopted analogies taken from habits, in addi-
tion to the fact that these habits were unknown, I would unite in
one genus birds of different shapes and sizes; and that if I drew
analogies from size and shape, I would unite birds of diverse habits;
besides which I always found intermediate birds and I did not know
to what genus to add them. In spite of these and other extremely
grave and insuperable difficulties, in order to give some form to the
chaos of my notes I determined in my idleness to outline an order,
gathering analogies according to my judgment, which would serve
63. Up to this time (according to Azara, P&uros, I, iv) “the descriptions

followed the order of acquisition,” which meant that each new bird had to be
compared with all the rest.
247
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
temporarily and until someone who knows more puts each species
in its place.@
Scattered through the two volumes are other comments on Azara’s

lack of both knowledge and help. In speaking of the diurnal birds of
prey, for instance, he remarked that he was unable to compare them
or any others “with those of Europe; for this it was necessary to be
familiar with the size, colors, and habits of both: and the truth is that
I never devoted myself to this task until now, nor do I remember having
seen a cabinet of birds nor having had a single bird of prey in my hand
in my own country.“65 Indeed he later considered some of his fist
descriptions, made “when I had little or no knowledge,“66 to be quite
inadequate, especially where he had never seen another specimen and
thus had been unable subsequently to improve the description. Never-
theless, passing remarks here and there in the Pcixaros reveal a country-
man’s familiarity with the birds of his homeland, indicating at least a
modicum of interest on which he could eventually build.
In regard to assistance, Azara observed that “the few times that I
name people indicate that in these undertakings I have not had any aid
and that I did everything myself. I except from this declaration the
priest of San Ignacio, to whom I owe many species as will be seen.“67
In fact, Noseda contributed over forty descriptions. Other people were
mentioned, but never more than once or twice.
In his general remarks on the birds of Paraguay, Azara touched on

many themes, among them the unreliability of local information on
names and habits, the distorted European opinion about the beauty
and singing abilities of South American birds based on the biased
sample taken to Europe, the difficulties of observing many of the birds
because of their small size and the scarcity of individuals (in addition
to the density of the forests), the abundance of insectivorous birds,
and some characteristics of migratory and flocking behavior.@ Some
of these subjects were developed at greater length in the Priraros after
64. Azara, “Aves,” I, 1-2. This section concludes (pp. 3-4) with explanations
of Azara’s terminology and of his methods of measurement and of marking speci-
mensfor shipment.
65. Ibid., p. 17.
66. Ibid., p. 66.
67. Ibid., p. 85.
68. Ibid., pp. 5-9.
248
he had read Buffon, which gave him a base of European knowledge

upon which to draw. One in particular was the effect of climate, on
which he was to disagree strongly with Buffon. But in the “Aves” he
merely noted that “I can say nothing about the influences of climate,
which can only be known through comparisons that I cannot make,
because I have not observed any birds other than those of Paraguay.“69
One can imagine the deep interest with which he read Buffon when he
finally had the opportunity.
The two volumes of the “Aves” differ somewhat. “Although I have
taken the trouble,” said Azara, “which I would like to have left to
others, of combining my birds into genera, I have not tried to arrange
the genera amongst themselves, a matter that is not very difficult and
anyone at all can do it.“70 In fact, he put in the first volume the birds
of whose descriptions and divisions he felt most confident, and in the
second those about which he felt less sure. There had been uncertainties
even for some of those in the first volume, “because when individuals
are acquired with years in between, it not being possible to save them
or sketches of them, ideas are erased and confused with such a multi-
tude of species, and the descriptions are never so clear that they always
suffice to portray the physiognomy, etc.“” He complained particularly
about the difficulties of describing the shore birds - “all the species
are so alike in appearance” * - yet in this case his descriptions have all
been identified with existing birds, and seven of them serve as type de-
scriptions.
In the first volume are the diurnal and nocturnal birds of prey, night-
hawks, swallows, bats (he knew they were mammals, but was following
local custom), parrots, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, woodcreepers,
jays, orioles and blackbirds, storks, herons, ibises, shore birds, rails,
ducks, kingfishers, terns, tinamous, guans and chacalacas, anis and
cuckoos, and pigeons and doves, along with such distinctive birds as
the white-eared puffbird (Nystalus chacuru), roseate spoonbill (A@
U~U~CZ), southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis), wattled jacana (Jacana
jacana), sungrebe (Heliornis fulica), southern screamer (Chauna torqua-
ta), and red-legged seriema (Cariama cristuta), which he did not attempt
to fit into any of his categories. 73 A few birds described by Noseda
69. Ibid., p. 8.
70. Ibid., p. 68.
71. Ibid., p. 136.
72. Ibid., p. 160.
73. Ibid., pp. 118, 146, 179, 187,192, 210, 212.
249
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
“after the preceding birds had been copied,” like the second vulture
he had collected on May 22, 1789,% were added at the end of the
volume.
The second volume begins with the following notice to the reader:
Up to this point my scanty knowledge has to some extent enabled

me to combine the general analogies of the large birds, whose habits
are separable and whose overall and partial shape very apparent. 1
have been able to do the same thing with some of the small birds,
because their characters are easy to recognize: thus 1 have spoken
about them generically with certainty, omitting from the individual
descriptions whatever was general.
But as I have only seen one to four individuals of a large part of the
following species, many of them bought dead or mutilated from
people who could say nothing else about them except that they
had killed them, it is not possible for me to make exact generic
separations, which are based on complete knowledge of habits and
shapes, which have been erased from my mind by the years that have
intervened in the acquisition of one and others of them. For these
reasons the exactitude of my divisions up to now is not to be ex-
pected in what follows, because I have no guidance but the reading
of the individual descriptions, which cannot well explain the shapes;
but as almost all the following birds have been sent by me to the
Real Gabinete, its faculty will be able to correct my classesat a
glance, as I myself would do much better if I saw them all together
rather than by reading all my notes.7s
The 23 genera into which he divided them contained, as he sus-

pected, very mixed groups of small birds, many of whose descriptions
are not identifiable at all. Only 20 descriptions out of 209 from the
fist volume cannot be found in the Piwros, either separately or
incorporated into other accounts, but 52 out of 205 in the second
volume cannot be located there. He either dropped them or improved
them so much that they are not recognizable, the reorganized genera
in the Pbxaros still, however, containing some mixed groups. In this
regard help had come not from the Real Gabinete in Madrid, but
from Antonio Pineda y Ramirez, one of three naturalists traveling with
14. Ibid., p. 249.

75. Ibid., II, 1.
250
The Isolated Spanish Genius: FBlix de Azara
the Malaspina expedition,76 which had left Spain on July 30, 1789, for
a journey around the world. The plan was abandoned in the Philippines
(where Pineda died in July 1792) in favor of a return to South America.
The last page of Azara’s “Aves” is dated August 13, 1789, and on
Noverber 25 the viceroy reported that the volumes had been sent from
Buenos Aires to Spain. Between these dates the manuscript was read
in Buenos Aires by Pineda, who arrived at the port city of Montevideo
on September 19 for a two-month stay. “He asked me for a copy,”
Azara later wrote, “which I sent to him and he received it in Lima
[where the expedition arrived in May 17901, offering to organize my
work and put it in better condition, according to what he wrote me
from Guayaquil [October 17901. “I’ Pineda had on board an extensive
natural history library, including the books of Linnaeus and Buffon,
if he had in fact obtained all the books he had requested before the
expedition sailed.% He had been giving some thought to birds, as is
evident from a letter that he wrote home from Lima on September 1,7,
1790, about (among other things) those birds collected so far. He re-
marked that “a new method was adopted for their description, basing
it on the characters of their conformation and not on the fallible one
of colors.” 79
Whatever the precise advice that Pineda gave Azara, it was the first
Azara received from someone familiar with the literature, who indeed
had it at hand, and it seems to have restored his enthusiasm:
Afterwards I read my notes with greater care and knowledge: I

made more than a hundred reductions in birds that were duplicated
[to 301 species in the Pix~ros, among which 40 duplications that
he recognized can be found] : 1 clarified and completed many
76. Azara’s contact with members of the Malaspina expedition was minimal.
The correspondence with Pineda will be discussed below. Although Azara pub
lished an account of Cochabamba by Tadeo Haenke, another of the naturalists
on the expedition, written after the latter took up residence in South America in
1793 (see Azara, Voyages, II, 380-541). not only did the two men never meet or
correspond, but Azara published the manuscript without Haenke’s knowledge.
This was perhaps an indiscretion, but he feared that otherwise it might not be
published (idem, Viajes, p. 52), and in fact it was not published in Spanish until
nearly a century later. Azara and Jo& de Bustamante y Gucrra. commander of
the Atreuida, became friends (ibid., p. 92) after Bustamantc’s return to South
America in I797 as governor of Uruguay.
77. Azara. Pdxaros, I, v.
78. Beddall, “Scientific Books and Instruments.”
79. Ibid., p. 99.
251
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
descriptions; and at the cost of hunts and extensive travels, I ac-

quired new species and information on the old ones [the total in
the Pajaros is 4481. Lastly, I recognized that my families ought to
be corrected, although it seemed to me impossible to characterize
them well; and besides I found intermediate species, others that
seemed isolated, and others for which, on account of having seen
them only once or twice and remembering little about them, I did
not succeed in finding their proper place.
In these circumstances, I limited myself to correcting what I knew,

putting at the end of each family the birds that began to deviate
from it. My rule in characterizing families has been to make use
preferably of the shapes to be found principally in the bill, wings,
and feet [Linnaeus emphasized bills and feet], as being those that
most influence habits and the easiest to recognize. I have not bur-
dened myself with giving a precise succession to the families, con-
sidering this a point of small importance and one that cannot be
worked out with exactness either. . .
When my ornithology was arranged, they ordered me to return to

Buenos Aires.se
AZARA AND BUFFON
In Buenos Aires Azara finally had the opportunity to read the work
of another naturalist, Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, &&ale et particu-
li&e.al Azara had a tremendous advantage over Buffon in his firsthand
experience of all that he wrote about, and he brought his by now for-
midable background to bear as he read the famous encyclopedia. From
this point on, the histories of Azara’s works on birds and quadrupeds
diverge rather sharply, so I shall discuss them separately, beginning
with the quadrupeds.
Buffon was reputed to be “the best naturalist of this and even of
past centuries,” Azara noted, but
this preconception notwithstanding, I found that a good part of what

is historical was composed of common information that is false
or mistaken: that in general no exact idea was given either of the
80. Azara, P&mx, I, v-vi.

81. See note 26 for Azara’s references to the copies of Buffon that he received.
2.52
sizes or of the proportions: that different animals were sometimes

combined, entangling them together: that on occasion species were
multiplied: and finally, that it was necessary to indicate the errors
from which it suffered in my work. Nevertheless, I delayed this new,
odious, and difficult undertaking for some time, judging it to be be-
yond my powers; and it appearing to me that in order to do this pro-
perly it was necessary to have read the authors of whom he has
availed himself: and I did not have them, nor did I have any more
knowledge of them than what one reads in Buffon’s quotations. But
in the end, reflecting on the other hand on the utility that always re-
sults from destroying errors: and that to get the works of these au-
thors would be for me almost impossible: and that it appears that
Spain has no one who wishes to speak on this subject, I resolved to
do it and made a critique of the said work and of the authors that
are cited in it.82
Azara began by reading the volumes in Spanish and was disappointed

that Jose de Clavijo y Fajardo, vice-director of the Real Gabinete and
translator of the “French Pliny,” had made no effort to correct any of
the errors. Consequently, he did this himself by adding to the accounts
of his quadrupeds commentaries on the remarks of Buffon, and on the
historical sources from which Buffon drew much of his information.
He sent the resulting manuscript to his brother in 1796 in hopes of
obtaining the criticism of a naturalist.
Azara requested that his manuscript not be published until he re-
turned from some additional journeys, but this request, delayed per-
haps by the troubled political situation, arrived too late.83 Jose Nicolas,
by now in Paris, had given the document to the French scholar M.-L.-E.
Moreau de Saint-M&y, who had returned from exile in the United
States in November 1799. Moreau translated the work and published
it in 1801 under the title Essaissur I’histoire mturelle des quadrupcdes
de la province du Paraguay. Apparently encountering acrimonious op-
position to Azara’s criticisms of Buffon, Moreau defended his role in
translating the text, adding that he only regretted “that the reproaches
of the Spanish naturalist were so frequent and . . . too often well found-
ed, although there have also been a number that lack soundness.“”
Others, among them Georges Cuvier, also approved of Azara’s work.85
82. Azara, Qwdnipedos, I, v-vi; see also Azara, Essais, I, xlv-I.
83. Azara, Quadnipedos, I, vi.
84. Azara, Ewis, I, xviii-xix.
85. Ibid., pp. lxxv-lxxx.
253
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
Parenthetically, it should be noted that there is no sign of the cen-

surable military information in the Essais (or in the “Aves,” or in the
later published Quadnipedos and Ptixaros) that has been claimed to
have prevented its publication in Spain,86 nor did Azara have any diffi-
culty in publishing the Quadnipedos and Prixaros as soon as he returned
to Spain. Moreover, because Jose Nicolas did not himself return to
Spain until late in 1799, and because his younger brother wasanxious
about the criticisms of Buffon, it seems only natural that Jose Nicolis
should seek the advice of the Frenchwith regard to publication. Indeed,
the Essais volumes were published as a “suite necessaire aux Oeuvres
de Buffon.” 87
The censurable material seems instead to have been in Azara’s 1793
manuscript “Description historica, phisica, politica, y geografica de
la provincia de1 Paraguay,” a copy of which Jose Nicolis sent to his
friend Bernard0 de Iriarte in Madrid on October 30, 1800. On Novem-
ber 22 he wrote to Iriarte suggesting that after Iriarte had read it, they
talk about how it might be published. From Iriarte’s letters it appears
that the military information concerned the Portuguese and their activi-
ties in the border area. This manuscript still has not been published.sa
Five additional years of work enabled Azara to add new mammals
as well as new commentary to the Quadnipedos, and to refine and
correct his criticisms of Buffon. It was “enlarged, corrected, and
greatly improved ,” to use his own words.8g Furthermore, when he
was in Paris he discovered other errors and corrected them in a chapter
on quadrupeds in his Viajes. In that work he also took the opportunity
to expand on ideas suggested by his reading of Buffon, especially the
effect of climate on size and color and the origin of New World birds
and mammals. As might be expected, he disagreed with Buffon on
both.gO
Similar commentaries and criticisms were inserted in the accounts in
86. Glick and Quinlan, “Myth,” p. 76; note 23.

87. Azara, Essais, title page.
88. Jose Nico1a.s de Azara and Bernard0 de Iriarte, correspondence on Felix
de Azara’s work, Azara MSS (no. 20088, packet 2), Biblioteca National, Madrid.
Most of the relevant correspondence is from Iriarte to Azara, outlining the possible
objections to publication. For further information on this manuscript and the
location of copies, see Alvarez Lopez, Azara, pp. 50-52; Julio Cesar Gonzalez,
“Apuntes,” pp. Ixxxvii-lxxxviii.
89. Azara, Qwdrripedos, 1, dedication.
90. See Beddall, “Azara,“pp. 4045,51-65.
254
the Prixaros, but Azara hastened to add that “it should not be thought
that I hold anything personally against Buffon: on the contrary, I
should not conceal the fact that my intention for many years was to
send my unpublished notes to Buffon himself so that he might arrange
and correct them, and so that they might be corrected to his liking;
and I would have done this if I had not discovered that he had died
[in 17881. 91 Unable to persuade anyone else to use his notes (Pineda
had also died and Clavijo was not interested), he finally published them
himself, the first volume (or part of it, up to page 399) in 1802 and the
other two volumes in 1805, publication being interrupted by his ab-
sence in Paris.
His first effort had been to try to identify his own birds with Buf-
fon’s descriptions or with Edme-Louis Daubenton’s plates (which he
had finally received many years after having requested them).92 The
difficulty of this may be imagined, and sometimes Azara made four or
more suggestions. Often, of course, he found none to make, as so many
of his birds were new. He frequently criticized Buffon’s information
(sometimes taken from Sonnini, as he noted), as well as his divisions of
various groups such as the parrots or herons. He was sufficiently stimu-
lated by Buffon’s remarks on varieties, on the influence of climate, and
on the northern route by which Buffon thought Old World birds had
reached the New World to enlarge on these subjects himself. He could
not accept Buffon’s belief that climate influenced color and size, nor
his claim that many European birds had arrived in the New World by
way of the cold north.93
But Azara’s many real contributions to Buffon’s work were slighted
in the French translation by Sonnini, which was published in 1809
under the title I, ‘histoirc naturelle des oiseaaux du Paraguay et de la
Plata, as volumes 3 and 4 of the Voyages. In most casesof disagree-
ment, Sonnini followed his mentor Buffon. In spite of Sonnini’s harsh
and seemingly authoritative criticisms of Azara, Sonnini was frequently
wrong and Azara frequently right; still, it is difficult to be precise about
this because of the changing status of many of the forms since then and
the absence at the time of any single standard.
Furthermore, as an adherent of Buffon, Sonnini failed to take
91 Azara, P&xams,I, vii-viii.

92. Ibid., p. vi.
93. Such comments are found not only in the introductory statement “De 10s
pixaros en general,” Prixrrros, I, l-l 2, but scattered through the text. They are
briefly summarized in Arara’s Vi+, pp. 178-l 80. See also BeddalI, “Azara,” pp.
32-33,40-41,43,64-65.
255
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
advantage of the opportunity to give Linnaean names to Azara’s birds,

simply labeling new species as such. He left this opportunity open to
Vieillot, who shortly thereafter named many of them. Whether Pineda
had made any such suggestion to Azara is unknown. Certainly there is
no indication that Azara ever thought of giving any but Spanish or
Indian names to his birds.
Sonnini’s hostility to Azara was ilI concealed, beginning with his
“notice of the translator.” He wrote there, “I will content myself with
advising that the rather monotonous but necessary division of the des-
criptions of the birds into formes [a catchall for various details], di-
mensions, and couleurs is my work: the confusion that often prevails
in the original seemed to me to require this labor.“94 Azara’s work was
by no means as disorganized as Sonnini suggested, though perhaps he
can be forgiven for this particular rearrangement.
What Sonnini did not say was what he left out or otherwise altered.
To begin with, he omitted the prologue, which contained Azara’s de-
fense of his criticisms of Buffon, and the “notice to the reader” concern-
ing his terms and methods of measurements. He also eliminated some of
Azara’s descriptions altogether: the sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter
striatus, no. 27) which he thought, as did Azara, was the European
sparrow hawk (A. nisus); the barn owl (Tyto alba, no. 46) a different
subspecies of which is found in South America; the white-browed
woodpecker (Piculus aurulentus, no. 257) because he thought it the
same as the preceding species; and the slaty-breasted wood-rail (Arami-
des saracura, no. 369) because he thought it only a variety of the
species preceding it.* He also omitted the description of no. 217,
applying the number erroneously to Azara’s no. 218.%
Beyond this, Sonnini left out almost all of Azara’s references to
Buffon, whether they had to do with identification or with other topics
like varieties or the influence of climate. He compensated for these
omissions, which he rarely acknowledged (and then usually by dis-
missing Azara’s discussions as “useless”), by listing the suggested names
in his notes and now and then adding remarks in answer to Azara or
criticizing him. He was particularly irate about Azara’s batarh and his
t inamous,97 some of the difficulty arising from the fact that Sonnini
and Azara visited different parts of South America. Sonnini notwith-
94. Azara, Voyuges,III, i.

95. Ibid., 78-79, 122-123;1V, 4, 14-15, 231.
96. Ibid., III, 427-428.
97. Ibid., notes on the following pages: III, 416418;1V, 142-143, 153, 158.
256
standing, seven of Azara’s batarcis and six of his tinamous are type
descriptions. In fairness it must be noted that on the few occasions
where Sonnini judged Azara to be correct in his criticism of Buffon,
he said so.
One might presume that what was left would be a literal translation
of Azara’s text, but this is not the case. Beyond the omissions, Sonnini
compressed at will. Although sometimes his translation is exact, at
other times it can only be characterized as extremely free. Thus the
French translation of Azara’s Pharos, which is more available than the
rare original Spanish and consequently more likely to be consulted,
gives a distorted and incomplete picture of the ornithological work that
Azara accomplished during his twenty years in South America.
For a full exposition of Azara’s work, then, it is necessary to con-
sult the Spanish versions of both the Pharos and the Quadnipedos,
as well as the additional remarks to be found in the Viajes (the latter
translated from the French of 1809, the two in this c2se being equiva-
lent). Together these books are a mine of information on South Ameri-
can birds and mammals and would well repay study by present-day
zoologists.
What has been argued here is not that all geniuses or all Spaniards,
or even all Spanish geniuses, are or feel themselves to be isolated in
one respect or another. What has been argued is that Azara’s accom-
plishments were both real and recognized (in spite of Sonnini’s dispar-
agement), and that they were achieved under circumstances of social,
scientific, and geographic isolation that by most standards would be
considered fairly extreme. In Azara’s case at least, the phrase “isolated
Spanish genius” describes not a myth but a reality.98 And in the end,
this proved to be an advantage, not a disadvantage, for his work was
published and used, whereas that of contemporary expedition members
was not - a fate his work might well have shared if he had been ac-
cepted as one of them.
98. One might ask whether Azara developed the qualities of a genius only
after he was sent to South America at the age of 35. This does not seem likely.
Rather, as Anthony Storr has remarked: “Erik E&son, because of his interest in
biography, came to realize that human beings, especially if they are men of genius,
continue to change and develop throughout their lives,” a remark that would
seem to characterize Azara (Times Literary Supplement, October 9, 1981, p.
1178).
257
BARBARA G. BEDDALL
Acknowledgments
I should like to express my thanks to Eleanor H. Stickney of the

Ornithological Library of Yale University for making available to me
a photocopy *of Azara’s rare book on birds, Apuntamientos para la
historia natural de 10s pcixaros de1 Paragiiay y Rio de la Plata. I am
greatly indebted to Eugenio Ortiz de Vega, director, and Angeles
Calatayud, encargada del Archive, of the Museo National de Ciencias
Naturales in Madrid, for providing me with a photocopy of Azara’s
preliminary and still unpublished manuscript on birds, “Apuntaciones
para la historia natural de Lasaves de la provincia de1 Paraguay” (2 vols.,
1789) and to Ortiz de Vega for permission to quote from it. I am also
indebted to Guiliermo Guastavino Gallent. director of the Biblioteca
National in Madrid, for photocopies of manuscripts among the papers
relating to Jose Nicolis about his brother’s publications. Finally, I
should once again like to express my appreciation to my husband for
his unfailing interest and support.
25x

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The Isolated Spanish Genius -Myth or Reality?

Fklix de Azara and the Birds of Paraguay

In 1802 the Spanish naturalist Felix de Azara dedicated his work

1. F&lix dc Azara, Apuntamientos para la historia natural de 10s quadrripedos

contributions to South American zoology, and second, to examine more

AZARA’S PLACE IN NATURAL HISTORY

Azara was born in the tiny village of BarbuAales in the Aragonese

surveysof Latin American scienceseeMarcel Roche, “Early History of Science

when he was finally ordered home - the boundaries still unsettled.

fact that it was published “incomplete as it was, without informing me

Long before our departure for America we studied Felix de Azara

accurate as he was conscientious about all the animals that he saw,

An achievement of a different order was Azara’s critique of Count

13. Alcide d’orbigny, Voyage duns I’Amhique Mkridionale (Paris: Pitois-

based on them, without benefit either of illustrations or of the speci-

ISOLATION, MYTH OR REALITY?

Examining the social network that connects people is one approach

14. Glick and Quinlan, “Myth,” pp. 68-73.

24. Glick and Quinlan, “Myth,” pp. 70-71.

where a natural history was sent to me.” Se mefranqued is a passive construction

larger, it swallowed whole, beginning by crushing the skull and ending

28. Azara “Aves,” I, 59.

The Paraguayan frontier on which Azara spent so many years was

In the afternoon [of August 25, 17841 . . . we continued along the

. . . It is located upon a smooth little hill of colored earth surrounded

32. Ibid., II, 55-57.

Presumably it was on this visit, a trip undertaken to relieve the enforced

Azara’s sense of isolation could only have been heightened by the

well as translations (mainly from classical Latin authors) of some works

40. Guillermo Bowles, Introduccibn a la historia natural y a la geografia fisica

he is in many ways an anomaly, a special case outside the usual system,

As I began to be aware of their [the Portuguese] stratagem and saw

After receipt of a request from the then-governor of Paraguay,

43. Barbara G. Beddall, “Scientific Books and Instruments for an Eighteenth-

understood,” as far as Azara was concerned, “that this be done without

45. Francisco dc las Barras de Aragon, “Una carta de D. Felix de Azara y

48. Charles-Athanase Walckenaer, biographical introduction to Azara’s Viujes,

flourished in Spain. This was succeeded by a much longer period during

THE BIRDS OF PARAGUAY

Beginning in 1752, efforts were made to set up a museum of natural

a letter to the marquess of Sonora, the ministro universal de Indias, des-

regularly as long as I am here. I already have 244 species of birds des-

being the one already referred to by Al& and by Azara himself. On

There is no way to determine exactly when Azara began to collect

6 1. See note 59.

6, the fate of which is unknown, contained the birds collected by Azara

Traveling through the provinces of Paraguay and Misiones and the

63. Up to this time (according to Azara, P&uros, I, iv) “the descriptions

Scattered through the two volumes are other comments on Azara’s

In his general remarks on the birds of Paraguay, Azara touched on

he had read Buffon, which gave him a base of European knowledge

Up to this point my scanty knowledge has to some extent enabled

The 23 genera into which he divided them contained, as he sus-

14. Ibid., p. 249.

Afterwards I read my notes with greater care and knowledge: I

descriptions; and at the cost of hunts and extensive travels, I ac-

In these circumstances, I limited myself to correcting what I knew,

When my ornithology was arranged, they ordered me to return to

AZARA AND BUFFON

this preconception notwithstanding, I found that a good part of what

80. Azara, P&mx, I, v-vi.

sizes or of the proportions: that different animals were sometimes

Azara began by reading the volumes in Spanish and was disappointed