350 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



He writes to his old friend Menander, at Stockholm, 

 ' May 8, Upsala, 1760 : Nothing would give me greater 

 pleasure than to see you, my dear friend, for a few days, 

 at my little country seat, three-quarters of a mile ' 

 [Swedish] ' from Upsala, and to converse with you once 

 more before we leave the world. Pray keep your word, 

 and come if you can.' He now always signs himself 

 4 Carl v. Linne,' a mongrel style of signature. Archbishop 

 Menander had undertaken the task of preparing his 

 great friend's memoirs for the world. For this purpose 

 the diary was prepared ; but the work was never carried 

 out. Linnaeus gave all his best duplicates in fossils 

 to Archbishop Menander, who particularly enjoyed the 

 study of fossils. 



4 In 1764 the sixth edition, by far the most complete, 

 of the "Genera Plantarum" was published; nor did 

 its author ever prepare another. It was intended as a 

 companion to the " Species Plantarum," but was greatly 

 superseded by the most concise and commodious short 

 characters of genera given in the vegetable part of the 

 " Systema Naturae." ' l So full were his thoughts and 

 waking dreams of his beloved science, that Linne, writing 

 to Mr. Edwards, April 1764, on his papers and pictures 

 of * Vegetating Wasps,' says, ' My thoughts are so taken 

 up with these productions that I cannot sleep without 

 dreaming of them.' It is true, he was not disturbed by 

 his four daughters practising fathoms of sonata. 



May 3, 1764. He had a dangerous attack of pleurisy, 

 1 Smith. 



