BIHANG TILL K. SV. VF,T.-AK\1). HAXnL. BAND 13. AFD. IV. N:0 5. Öl 



perhaps from tho lirst, lias remained little knoAvn and bas 

 been even totally ncglected by great autborities, wbo tbus 

 missed tbe verv source of antbentic and deiinite information 

 on a great number of i^innean species of Invertebrate animals. 

 Martin Houttltyn, a ]M. D. of Leyden who between 

 1761 and 1773 publisbed in eigtlieen vohimes a Natural Hi- 

 story of Aniraals according to tbe system of Linn.eus and in 

 its fourteentb volume treated of tbe Ecbinoids, evidently did 

 not know of tbe existence of tbe M. ]j. U. But, nevertbeless, 

 by doing liis best to make ont tbe species from tbe sbort 

 diagnoses of tbe S. N. ed. 12 alone, be succeeded in identi- 

 fying two species tbat, like most of tbe otbers, escaped snb- 

 seqnent describers. His work was all but ignored bv Leskk, 

 tbe Leipzic Professor wbo in 1778 re-editcd Klein's book of 

 1784. witli numerous commentaries, tbe well-known »Addita- 

 raenta». Alone out of niany successive autbors be bad l)efore 

 bira, all tbe time, tbe Museum Ludovicie Ulrica?. But in tbe 

 old age of its autbor tliere bad arisen in some quarters a 

 movement of reaction against tbe powerful inlluence be bad 

 exerted'), and of tbis feeling Leskh seems to bave- partaken 

 in no small dcgree. His ellbrts to understand tbe doscriptions 

 in tbe M. L. V. were very sligbt, wbile be did bis best to 

 procure validitv and apparent priority to tbe ])brases of Klein, 

 by sbortening tbem wbere needed into binary denominations. 

 In so doing be was bound, before all, to idcntify witb due 

 exactness tbe species tbese pbrases belonged to. But Klein's 

 collection was not accessible to bim-), and so be resorted to 

 tbe hazardous expedient of searcbing tbose of bis friends, 

 LiNCK, Tkieu and tbe Prince of Schwarzburg-PiUdolstadt, 

 for specimens answcring to tbe verv indiftereut ligures be 

 commented on. in tbis lie often was unfortunatc, and tbus 

 bappened to describe under Klcinian names species tbis autbor 

 never bad known, and wbicb can now but rarelv be made 

 out from Leske's own descriptions. Tbus obseured tlie Ecbi- 



') I^^ota uimis snnt attjue agnita, tot tantisque malevoloruui detra- 

 ctorum in divos quoqae raanes insnrgentiiim obtrectationibus nou exte- 

 nuata, immortalis viri . . . merita». G.melix, S. N. ed. XIII, Ratio editionis. 

 — Carus, Gescli. d. Zool. in Deutschland, p. 479. 



^) Klein, b. 1685, d. 1750, in 1740 sold his colleotions to the Mar- 

 grave oi" Brandenburg-Culmbacb, who transferred them to his palace at 

 Bayreuth, from where they came to the University of Erlangen, instituted 

 1743. See d'årgenville, ed. 1742, p. 217. — Nova Acta Eruditorum Anni 

 1772, p. 557. — V. Carus, 1. c. p. 458. 



