David, Armand
DAVID, ARMAND
Lazarist missionary, naturalist; b. Espelette (Basses Pyrenees), France, Sept. 7, 1826; d. Paris, Nov. 10, 1900. He taught in Italy from 1851 to 1861. After his ordination in 1862 he was sent to China; he soon published Quelques observations sur les productions naturelles de la Chine. He explored Mongolia in 1866, Tibet from 1868 to 1870, and central China from 1872 to 1874. As a result, he greatly enriched the zoological and botanical collections of the Museum d'Histoire Naturele of Paris, and was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences (1872). His publications include: Voyage en Mongolie (1875); Second voyage d'exploration de l'ouest de la Chine (1876); Journal de mon troisieme voyage d'exploration dans l'Empire chinois (1875); Les oiseaux de la Chine (1877); Plantae Davidianae (catalogue of his plant collections, 1884–86); Notice sur quelques services rendus aux sciences naturelles par les missionnaires d'Extreme-Orient (1888); and contributions to the journals Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, Missions Catholiques, and Annales de philosophie chrétienne.
Bibliography: p. fournier, Voyages et découvertes scientifiques des missionnaires naturalistes français à travers le monde (Paris 1932) 67–91, with bibliog. a. trin, Dictionnaire de biographie francçaise (Paris 1929–) 10:340.
[m. f. durozoy]