1 8 PROCEEDINGS OV THE 



HISTORY 



OF THE 



LINNEAN COLLECTIONS, 



PEEPARED FOR THE 



CENTEMEY ANNIVERSARY OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 

 BY THE SENIOR SECRETARY. 



The History of the Liunean Collections in tlie possession of tlie 

 Society divides itself naturally into three periods — 1st, the period 

 of their growth; 2nd, their possession by Sir J. E. Smith ; and 

 3rd, their acquisition and tenure by the Linnean Society. 



I. The GrEOWTH of the Collections. 



The scanty information afforded by the collections as to the 

 place whence obtained and date, makes it a matter of consider- 

 able difficulty to ascertain the progress of the herbarium and 

 zoological specimens in our Cabinets. We find a few scattered 

 hints in Linnseus's Autobiography, of which a translation is given 

 in Maton'a edition of Pulteney's ' Greneral View of the Writings of 

 Linnfcus,' 1805 ; these, being the actual statements of Linnaeus, 

 are the foundation of our ivnowledge on this matter, Linnaeus 

 first became acquainted with dried plants when living with 

 Dr. Kilian Stobaeus at Lund in 1727. " He was highly de- 

 lighted with the mode of making a hortus siccus, and imme- 

 diately began to collect all the plants that grew in the vicinity 

 of Lund, and to glue them on paper" (p. 515), Having, on the 

 advice of his old friend Eothmann, removed from Lund to Upsala, 

 where he would find amongst other advantages " a most exten- 

 sive botanical garden to gratify his taste for botany," he became 

 known to Olof Celsius, the author of ' Hierobotanicon.' In the 

 autumn of 1729 he was examining plants in the academical 

 garden when Celsius noticed him, and, in reply to his question, 

 Linua}us said " that he had above GOO indigenous plants preserved 

 in his Cabinet," and he afterwards showed his herbarium (pp. 517, 

 518). In 1736 Linnaeus paid his visit to England at the expense 



