l6 PEOCEEDISGS OF TUE 



fixed on cardboards, but this was done at a comparatively recent 

 period. This method of preserving fish, like specimens of a hortus 

 siccus, seems to have been first emploj-ed by Johann Friederich 

 Gronow *, who described it in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' 

 and whose collection of similarly prepared skins is still preserved in 

 the Natural History Museum. 



"We are informed by Sir J. E. Smith himself f that Linne's 

 private collection contained, at the time of its purchase, 158 speci- 

 mens of dried fish-skins, beside some in spirits. These latter were 

 not kept by Smith ; perhaps he did not sufficiently care for them 

 to have them sent over from Sweden with the other parts of the 

 collection. I make the number of specimens at present in the 

 Society's possession to be rather liigher, viz., 168 ; the discrepancy 

 being probably due to the circumstance that when two small 

 specimens of the same species were mounted on the same sheet of 

 paper they were counted as one by the person who prepared the 

 original inventory. At any rate there is no evidence which might 

 lead us to suspect that any of the specimens have been lost since 

 they came into the possession of the Society. 



The collection was kept for a great many years in one of Linne's 

 own cabinets, which, however well it may have answered its 

 purpose in the pure air of Linne's residence, is quite unsuitable in 

 the dust-laden atmosphere of Piccadilly ; and the wonder to me is, 

 how little the specimens have suffered under the accumulation of 

 matter in the wrong place. In order to render them more secure 

 in the future, your Council has ordered them to be transferred to 

 dust-proof glass-topped boxes, in which they are so arranged that, 

 with the aid of my Catalogue, every specimen can be found without 

 difficulty. 



In looking over the specimens, one is at once struck by the fact 

 that the sources whence Linne obtained his fishes were but few in 

 number, and, therefore, that his private collection represents only a 

 fraction of the materials upon which his work on the fishes in the 

 'Systema Naturae' is based. His own specimens belonged to three 

 faunae only, and form, in fact, three distinct sets, viz. : — 



1. Scandinavian species. 



2. A series of German, chiefly freshwater, fishes. 



3. The fishes collected for him by Dr. Alexander Garden in 



South Carolina. 



The Scandinavian series consists of 49 specimens, referable to 

 28 species. As all of them belong to well-known North European 

 species which had been previously well distinguished, characterized, 

 and described by Artedi and Gronow, no special value is attached 

 to them. With few exceptions they were in Linne's possession in 



* " A method of preparing specimens of Fish by drying their skins as 

 practised by John Frederick Gi-onovius M.D. at Leyden." Philos. Trana. 

 vol. xlii. 1744, p. 67. 



t Meui. and Corresp. of the late Sir J. E. Smith, vol. i. p. 114. 



