Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays étrangèrs is a work of ethnographical, botanical and zoological exploration by Pierre Belon

Pierre Belon

Pierre Belon was a French naturalist. He is sometimes known as Pierre Belon du Mans, or, in Latin translations of his works, as Petrus Bellonius Cenomanus.Belon was born in 1517 at Soulletiere near Cérans-Foulletourte...

(1517-1564), a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 from Le Mans

Le Mans

Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...

. Starting in 1546, Belon travelled through Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Arabia and Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

, returning to France in 1549.

His Observations, with illustrations, were first published in 1553. A second edition appeared in 1555. The work was translated into Latin by Charles de l'Écluse

Charles de l'Écluse

Charles de l'Écluse, L'Escluse, or Carolus Clusius , seigneur de Watènes, was a Flemish doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th century scientific horticulturists....

 (Carolus Clusius) and published in 1589 under the title Petri Bellonii Cenomani plurimorum singularium et memorabilium rerum ... observationes. The Latin text was reprinted as an appendix to Clusius's Exoticorum libri decem

Exoticorum libri decem

Exoticorum libri decem is an illustrated zoological and botanical compendium in Latin, published at Leiden in 1605 by Charles de l'Écluse....

(1605).