46 SVEN LOVEN, ON THE ECHINOIDEA DESCRIBED BY LINN^US. 



liis succossors witli the outmost scnipiilousuess, up to the 

 present day. 



It mav be reffarded as au ascertaincd fact that Linn^eus 

 never marked with labels af any kind whatever the specimens 

 he described in the two Royal Museums. The onlj indication 

 he ffives that might serve as a ciue to their ideutification in- 

 dependently of diagnosis and descriptiou, lies in thesc words 

 of the Swedish dedicatoiy preface to the M. L. U. . . . »The 

 short descriptions that I have drawn up of Your Majesty's 

 Natural Historv Collections, lusccts as Avell as Shells, disposed 

 according to the order in which they were arranged.» He 

 would not have written this, had he named the specimens. 

 And, surely, if there had been labels in Linn.elV own hand, 

 no one would have been found presuratuons enough to reject 

 them or to exchano-e them for anv other. 



Bäck in his oration of 1778 already quöted says, alluding 

 to the two Royal Museums: »All who take an interest in the 

 present and future state of Xatural History in our country 

 will hear with pleasure that both collections are now pre- 

 served at Drottningholm, and that they are kept in the same 

 order, in which LiNN.EUS arranged them, according to the pu- 

 blished descriptions, the whole marked with his names.» As 

 the matter stånds these last words cannot bv anv means be 

 understood to signify: names written down by Linn.eus him- 

 self, but simply species-names made oiit from his descriptions. 

 This had probably been done by some person employed for 

 the purpose and through the agency of Bäck, by the orders 

 of the Queeu Dowager, who on vacating in 1777 the hand- 

 some residence that had been hers since 1744, very naturally 

 may have wished to leave lier Museum, one of its treasures, 

 iirranged in a becoming manner'). 



Be this as it may, no trace is now left of these names. 

 SwARTZ, in his letters to Thunhekg about his doings at Drott- 

 ningholm, nowherc alludes to any names found there, not 

 even when he"'^) sends him sheets of names of species extracted 

 from the twelfth edition of the Systema Natura?, which he 



') P:ric af Sootberc, private Secretary to the Queen. in a letter 

 to Gjörvkll, "V|j 71), relätes how anxious she had bceu to have every 

 thing in order. He had been compelled to have catalogued withiu a 

 fortnight the manuscripts delivered in 1777. 



2 



) SWARTZ to ThUNBEBG ^7j 90. 



