The species seekers : heroes, fools, and the mad pursuit of life on Earth / Richard Conniff.

"The Species Seekers takes us back in time--before the words "scientist" or "biologist" even existed--to an era when a popular fever for the natural world swept through humanity. Discovering new species wasn't a rarefied pastime; it was a pandemic, a social disease that struck every corner of society, claiming such notables as Thomas Jefferson, who laid out mastodon bones on the floor of the White House, and Mark Twain, who wanted to explore the Amazon but went bust in New Orleans and had to make do with the river at hand. Amid its tales of adventure and intrigue, The Species Seekers offers unmatched insight into one of the great revolutions in the history of human thought. At the start, God was in heaven, man was the center of the universe, and everyone accepted that the Earth had been born yesterday for our benefit. But we weren't sure where vegetable ended and animal began. We didn't know what species were, or that they could be joined by common origin. We had no method of identifying the causes of the pestilential diseases that made death a constant companion. All that suddenly changed as the species seekers introduced us to the pantheon of life on Earth--and our place within it."--Dust Jacket.