OBITUARY. 



SVEN LUDVIG LOVEN. 

 Born January 6, 1809. Died September 3, 1895. 



FULL of years and of honours, rich in the reverence and love of 

 his pupils and his friends, the greatest biologist that Sweden has 

 known in this century has at last laid down the work that could 

 cease only with life. Despite an attack of influenza, and again of an 

 inflammation of the lungs some thirteen months ago, his vigorous 

 frame struggled long with death, and sank slowly and peacefully into 

 the final rest. 



Loven's family came from Loshult in Scania, in which fertile 

 province his great-grandfather. Mans Jonsson, was a husbandman. 

 It was the son of that man who first followed after learning, entering 

 the priesthood and taking the name Loven. His fifth and youngest 

 son. Christian, became a wealthy merchant and shipowner in 

 Stockholm, and to him and his wife, Maria Catharina Nordling, there 

 w^as born in that city the future leader of Swedish zoology. 



Thus Loven was in a position to receive a first-rate education. 

 Not only did he become conversant with foreign languages, of which 

 he spoke and wrote French, German, and English fluently, but he 

 acquired skill as a draughtsman and musician. His first school 

 education was in the private school of the army chaplain, Fredrik 

 Khngenstierna, and in 1823 he passed from here to the University of 

 Upsala. In the following year, however, he moved to Lund, possibly 

 attracted by the fame of the Professor in Zoology, Sven Nilsson. At 

 any rate he made zoology his main study, and in 1826 accompanied 

 the professor and four other students on a scientific expedition 

 through Norway. At the early age of twenty he took his degree as 

 Doctor of Philosophy. 



While in Lund, Loven nearly died of scarlatina, but recovered 

 with the loss of hearing of his right ear. It was probably this 

 disease that prepared the way for those many severe attacks of ill- 

 health that persecuted Loven in after life, and that prevented him 

 from publishing as much as his eminent gifts led the world to expect. 



After taking his degree, Loven studied under Ehrenberg at 

 Berlin for nearly a year ; but, after the publication of his treatise on 

 the geographical distribution of birds, he was recalled to Lund at the 

 close of 1830 as Docent in Zoology. It was in this year, too, that he 



