BIHANG TILL K. SV. VET.-AKAD. HANPL. BAND 13. AFD. IV. X:0 5. OH 



the seventeen species of tlie genvis Echinus which Linn-EUS 

 fictually had before him, were entirely msiifficient when it 

 became a question of discriminating tliese from niiraeioiTS iiew 

 species imknown to him. Then liis references to ligures were 

 resorted to^ and to an extent he never had forcseen. When 

 iu 17ol and 1752 hc iirst drew up his descriptions in the 

 (^ueen's ^Museiim, he referred almost exclusively to snch figures 

 of Echinoids in the works of d'Argenville, Gualtieki and 

 KuMPniD8, as seemed to come more or less near to the spe- 

 cimens before him, and these figures he pointed oiU to his 

 liearers when shortly afterwards he lectured on tlie Echinoids. 

 Låter, whilc preparing for the press the S. N. cd. 10, 1758, 

 the :\I. L. U. 17f54, and the S. N. ed. 12, 1767, when he had 

 not seen the original specimens for years, varions books ncAv 

 to him on Echinoids had come to liis notice, and he appended 

 from time to time references to the figures they contained, 

 some as exhibiting the typical species named and described, 

 but others as merely indicating other species apparently more 

 or less allied, which he thus placed on record, to be considered 

 at another time. <Trreat as were kis demands on a Natural 

 History draftsman^), he very rarely enjoyed the advantage of 

 meeting with satisfactory drawings, — least of all, certainly, of 

 Echinoids — , and had to content himself with very interiör 

 ones from various sources, all more or less incorrect or ob- 

 scure, some rude, others ornamentally afFected, nono of them 

 represcnting with due exactness the essential distinguishing 

 characters pointed ont in the dcscription. He had to take 

 them snch as they were, and thus those lists were brought 

 about wliieh are placed next to the diagnosis and enumerate 

 notes and figures of various authoi-s ilhistratino- some of them 

 the species in question, others allied species formerly seen, or 

 never seen, by him. It follows that these lists were never 

 meant to be lists of synonyms.-) For such they liave, liow- 

 ever, been taken, and many a Linnean species has in conse- 

 ipience been regarded as an aggregate of several difierent 

 species, and marked as such by means of »p.;> or »p. p.», »pars», 

 or a »pro parte . To speak here only of the species of the 



') Pictor, Sculptor et Botanicus aeque necessarii sunt ad figurara 

 laudabilern. Si alter horura peccet. evadit figura vitiosa. Phil. Bot. p. 2<?3. 



^) Synonyma sunt diversa Phytologorum nomina. eidem planta? im- 

 posita. Phil. Bot. p. 250. 



