1852.] Linnean Society. 193 



residence during the remainder of his life. He became a Fellow of 

 the Linnean Society in 1798, and published in the same year a use- 

 ful Manual of British Plants, entitled ' Synopsis Plantarum insulis 

 Britannicis indigenarum,' Lat. & Engl., 8vo, London, 1798. This 

 was his only natural-history publication : his other w^orks consist 

 entirely of occasional sermons, preached in the course of half a 

 century, during which he was actively engaged in the exercise of his 

 ministerial functions. He died in London on the 20th of May^ 1S54, 

 and was buried at Radnage on the 25th of the same month, his 

 funeral being attended by the entire body of his parishi<)ners, by 

 whom he was greatly beloved. 



In our Foreign List we have to lament the loss of three tlistin- , 

 guished Members : — XS/ ^ 



Charles Frederick von Ledebour was descended from an anCieiit 

 Pomeranian family, and was born on the 8th of July, 1785, at Stral-- 

 sund, where his father, who died a few weeks before his birth, had 

 been stationed as Swedish Judge-Advocate. In his fifteenth year 

 he entered the University of Greifswald, where, under the paternal 

 instruction of the celebrated physiologist Rudolphi, his juridical 

 studies soon gave place to mathematics and natural history, towards 

 which the bent of his mind was naturally directed. After completing 

 his studies at the University, he repaired to Stockholm to undergo 

 the public examination in mathematics and practical geometry, which 

 was necessary to qualify him as an Engineer Officer, and succeeded 

 in obtaining a commission. But while in Sweden, the acquaintance 

 which he formed with Thunberg and Swartz, and a journey to the 

 northern mountains on the Norwegian frontier, determined him to 

 relinquish the military career ; and on his return to Greifswald, on 

 the recommendation of Rudolphi, he became a candidate for the post 

 which the latter was about to vacate. On the third day after his 

 arrival he presented himself for medical examination ; wrote his 

 inaugural ' Dissertatio Botanica, sistens Plantarum Domingensium 

 Decadem ; ' and became Demonstrator of Botany and Director of 

 the Botanic Garden at Greifswald at the early age of twenty years. 

 In 1811, being appointed Professor of Natural History in the Univer- 

 sity of Dorpat, he passed some time in Berlin, where the conversation 

 of WiUdenow and Pallas stimulated him to the formation of exten- 

 sive plans for the elucidation of the natural history of the vast 

 domains which constitute the Russian empire. Crossing the scene 

 of war on the frontiers of Prussia, not without danger, he began in 

 earnest his career as a teacher, an observer and an author. He 



No. L. — Proceedings of the Linnean Society. 



