BICENTENARY OF LINN^US 9 



LINN^US AS A ZOOLOGIST. 

 By J. A. Allen, Ph. D. 



Carolus Linnseus, later known as Carl von Linne, was born at RS.- 

 shult, in the province of SmS,land, Sweden, May 13, O.S., 1707, and died 

 at Hammerby, near Upsala, on Jan. 10, 1778. His grandfather was a 

 farmer; his father, a clergyman. Young Linnseus, the future naturalist, 

 was intended by his parents for the ministry, and his early education 

 was conducted with this end in view. At the age of ten he was sent to the 

 Latin School at Wexio, but after seven years at this school he was found to 

 be so deficient in his scholastic studies that his parents thought of apprenti- 

 cing him to a shoemaker. 



While at Wexio, much of his time was devoted to the study of plants and 

 insects, an inclination apparently favored by his master, who was himself 

 greatly interested in botany. Fortunately young Linnseus was rescued 

 from his threatened degradation by Dr. John Rothman, a physician of 

 Wexio, who recognized his superior abilities, and appreciated his interest in 

 natural history. He took him into his own home, where for a year Linnseus 

 continued his botanical studies, aided by the advice and hbrary of his patron. 

 At the age of twenty he entered the University of Lund, where he soon found 

 himself \\^thout means of support, through the death of his patron and friend, 

 the kind-hearted physician of Wexio. Fortunately he soon won the friend- 

 ship of Dr. Kilian Stobseus, the professor of botany and medicine, who 

 made him a member of his family. Here he had access to books and to a 

 small museum of natural history, and found much leisure for exploring the 

 neighboring country and for collecting objects of natural history. At the 

 end of a year he went to Upsala, where, under Rudbeck and Roberg, he 

 advanced rapidly in medicine and botany. Here he won the friendship of 

 the renowned Olaf Celsius, whom he later characterized as the best botanist 

 in Sweden, and of Artedi, a fellow-student, who afterwards became the 

 founder of ichthyology. During his whole course at Upsala, it is said that 

 he did not hear a single public lecture on either anatomy, botany or chem- 

 istry, but he and Artedi, in good-tempered rivalry, were devoting their ener- 

 gies to natural history, — Linnseus to plants, birds and insects, and Artedi to 

 amphibia and fishes. Linnaeus here also began the preparation of his 

 epoch-making works on botany and of the first edition of his "Systema 

 Naturae," published a few years later in Holland. 



In 1732, at the age of twenty-five years, he was commissioned by the 

 Upsala Academy of Sciences to make a tour of exploration in Lapland in the 



