After the French and Indian War, in which France and England had fought over the control of North America, the French government decided to send an expedition to the Falkland Islands, or Isles Malouines, with a view to founding a colony where the Acadians expelled from Canada could settle. Under the command of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729 1811), the 1763 4 expedition claimed these islands for France and established a base at Port Saint Louis. This work, translated from French and first published in English in 1771, is an illustrated account of this endeavour by Antoine-Joseph Pernety...

A Benedictine scholar and naturalist, Antoine-Joseph Pernety (1716-96) produced this early and invaluable description of the natural history of the Falkland Islands (or isles Malouines). He had arrived there as part of the 1763-4 expedition led by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, claiming the islands for France. A small colony was established, allowing Pernety to provide an account of an ecosystem as yet unaffected by a human population. He spent some months studying the landscape, flora, fauna and climate, and his observations and drawings were published in these two volumes in 1770 (a...

A Benedictine scholar and naturalist, Antoine-Joseph Pernety (1716-96) produced this early and invaluable description of the natural history of the Falkland Islands (or isles Malouines). He had arrived there as part of the 1763-4 expedition led by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, claiming the islands for France. A small colony was established, allowing Pernety to provide an account of an ecosystem as yet unaffected by a human population. He spent some months studying the landscape, flora, fauna and climate, and his observations and drawings were published in these two volumes in 1770 (a...