3 i2 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



situation of the ventral fins. His descriptions, which 

 rendered it necessary to count the radii in the fins, 

 occasioned him considerable labour.' l This, which to 

 the unscientific reader smacks somewhat too stroLgly 

 of the counter of stamens, is defended by a scientific 

 writer : c The arrangement of fishes by the relative 

 position of their ventral fins was a happy and original 

 idea of the Swedish naturalist, as pointing out their 

 leading differences of form and habit by a distinctive 

 character, taken from a peculiar organ of their own. 

 Shells he was long before he would study minutely 

 at all, considering them merely as the houses of par- 

 ticular animals, the knowledge of whose structure and 

 economy was in a great measure inaccessible. At 

 length, however, the uniformity of his plan obliged him 

 to class these popular objects of admiration in some 

 way or other, and he has succeeded at least as well as 

 any of his fellow-labourers ; though we are by no means 

 inclined to justify some of his terms, which are borrowed 

 from an anatomical analogy, not only false in itself, but 

 totally exceptionable.' 2 



The Queen of Sweden had received a fine collection 

 of shells, &c., from India. ' Linnaeus received commands 

 to repair to Drottningholm to describe all these. He was 

 obliged to make a new science in respect to shells, to 

 which nobody had paved a clear way, and to lay a founda- 

 tion which he had not thought of.' 3 He conjectured the 

 key through Nature's own suggestion from the hinge. 

 1 Diary. 2 Sir J. E. Smith. s Diary. 



