64 LINNKAN SOCIETY Ol- I.ONDoX. 



Bfitaimica ' that "wliilst botanisiiig in tlio spring of 1728, 

 Liniueiis was jittackeJ by wlial. he roiisidercd to be a venomous 

 animal, at'terwards named by him Fm-'ta infenialis, in allusion to 

 the torment and tlanger he suffered from it." 



The following is a translation of Jtndolphi's remarks on 

 Fnriii * : — 



'' With 13lumenbac!i and others of our more recent writers 

 I exclude Fttria, a creature never seen by observers of nature 

 spokeu of as a worm and yet as flying in the air. .Should you, 

 however, incline to believe in sneli an animal it most assuredly 

 will not belong to the Vermes, but will be the larva of an insect 

 perhaps. 



" ("27. Furia inferiinlls vermis et nb eo concitari solitus morbus 

 descripti a Dan. C. Solander. In Nov. Act. Upsal. vol. i. pp. 44- 

 58. 



" Versio germanica : D. Solauder's Treatise on the Mordw urm 

 and the disease caused thereby. Translated by J. i\.E. Goeze in 

 Der Naturforscher, St. xi. pp. 183-204. 



" That Linnaeus (Amoju. Acad. vol. iii. p. 322) regarded it as a 

 dry worm (verinem siccum), but so elusive (evanidum) that it was 

 not possible to define its genus or species. Neither did Solander 

 ever see it, but constructs its character from accounts derived 

 from other people: body filiform, continuous, equal, ciliated on 

 both sides with retlexed adpressed spurs. That it descends from 

 the air upon men and beasts and causes a disease called Skott — 

 that is, stroke (ictuni); very frequent in Northern Sweden, par- 

 ticularly in Lapland Torneaensi et Kjemensi. 



" Analecta tow:irds the iiistory of Furin infernalifi Car. Godofr. 

 Hagen, [Pries., resp. C. Metzger] Kegiomontan., [1790] 22 pp. 

 4to. For the existence of Fw'ia, although he concedes the 

 little creature (animal culum) never to have been seen by any 

 person worthy of credit. Query: whether it is right to admit 

 things of this sort into a system. 



" Sliigtet Dodskott (Furia) by Adolph Modeer. In Nya 

 Yetensk. Akad. Handl. 1795, pp. 143-1G7. Puts forward many 

 things abiHit the Furia iiif,runlis, and classes it in \he same g^nus 

 with t/hat fabulous little creature (animalcnlo) the Fihtria medin- 

 ensis (which he wrongly supposes to have bristles), a thing greatly 

 to be reprobated." 



The following account of the incident is taken from the Diary 

 of LiniiJBiis, translated for Maton's edition of Pulteney f: — 



" In the spring of 1728, Linnseus went in a herborising ex- 

 cursion with Matthias Benzelstierna, to a very pleasant spot at 

 Fagle-sang, where, having taken off some of his clothes on account 

 of the heat, he was bitten in the riglit arm by a worm, called Furia 

 ivfenialis. The arm innnediately become so violently swollen and 



* 'Eiitozoorum sive verniiiim intestinaliuin Historia Naturalis,' vol. i. 

 p. 171 (180S). 



t 'A General View of the Writing of Linnajiis,' by Kichard Pultenev, London. 

 1805. 2nd edition, p. 516. 



