PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY 65 



society. Samuel Johnson found much pleasant resource 

 in Solander's company ; and the great man's more 

 fashionable friends, too, made him very welcome. 



Daniel Carl Solander was a friend and pupil of 

 Linnaeus. He was an apostle of the " Sy sterna," and 

 had much to do with making that philosopher's works 

 familiar to the people of England. Soon after his arrival 

 in this country, in 1760, he was employed at the British 

 Museum ; and, in one way or other, was connected with 

 it until his death. His early friendship with Banks 

 doubtless began there. In 1764 he became a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society. After his return from the voyage 

 in the Endeavour, the University of Oxford conferred 

 upon him the honorary degree of D.C.L. He left behind 

 him a large collection of Botanical MSS., which are now 

 preserved in the Natural History Museum. Beside 

 Botany, Solander had studied conchology assiduously. 

 Since 1779, he had been acting as Curator at Bulstrode 

 House, in charge of the splendid collection of the Dowager 

 Duchess of Portland. 



Dr. Jonas Dryander, another learned Swede, already 

 established in the intellectual society of London, and 

 well known to Sir Joseph Banks, henceforward filled the 

 post vacated by the death of Solander. He was a rather 

 more active man, and became as valuable an adherent of 

 the Banks establishment as his predecessor. 



John Christian Fabricius [1745-1807] was another 

 clever Scandinavian naturalist who assisted Banks at this 

 period. He had been a pupil of Linnaeus, and associate 

 of Thunberg and others. He became noted for a new 

 classification of insects, in advance of former ideas. In 

 his turn he was superseded ; but he performed great 

 services to natural science. 1 Fabricius was in England 



1 Among other writings he is remembered for Systema Entomologies 

 (1775), and Brief e uber England, etc. (1783). For a notice of his work, v. 

 J. G. Children, in Philosophical Magazine for February, 1830, p. 118. 



