Bernard-Germain-Etienne de la Ville sur Illon, comte de Lacépède (1756-1825), French naturalist, held the chair of the study of reptiles and fishes in the Jardin des Plantes, formerly the Jardin du Roi. Between 1798 and 1803 he published his five-volume Histoire naturelle des poissons, and in 1804 appeared his Histoire des cétacés. Lacépède described several Australian fish species. The Lacepede islands, off the coast of current-day Broome, were named by Nicholas Baudin during his expedition around Australia in 1801.