1892.] IN THE LIDTH DE JEUDE COLLECTION. 311 



have been acquired by our own Museum ; nor am I able to trace 

 where they have gone. 



Before proceeding to a detailed account of my identifications, I 

 propose to give such scraps of historical evidence about the Seba 

 and Lidth de Jeude collections as I have been able to get together, 

 and I hope that these in course of time will be supplemented by 

 other similar items of information. 



Firstly, from the preface to the fourth volume of the ' Thesaurus ' 

 we learn that, although Seba himself died in 1736, the collection 

 was not dispersed until 1752, when it was sold by public auction 

 in Amsterdam. 



It next, probably not very long afterwards ^, passed into the 

 possession of the Stadtholder, William V. of Holland, or at least of 

 his guardians, he being a boy of four at the time of the sale. But 

 when the French occupied Holland and the Stadtholder fled in 

 1795, the invaders, as was their habit in regard to objects of art 

 and science, brought back with them to Paris certain of the spe- 

 cimens of the Stadtholder's collection. Of these, or at least of the 

 Mammals, a list has most fortunately been preserved in the 

 Archives of the Paris Museum, a copy of which I owe to the 

 kindness of Prof. A. Milne-Edwards. This list, however (see below 

 p. 317), shows that no such specimens as are now attempted to be 

 identified went to Paris at that time. Indeed, such specimens as 

 these animals in spirit would not have been very attractive to the 

 French military and unscientific collectors, and they therefore, no 

 doubt, remained in Holland, but in whose hands I cannot trace. 



The next reference is one which, so far as it goes, is antagonistic 

 to the idea of any of Seba's spirit-specimens having been preserved 

 until now, and it deserves, therefore, careful consideration. In 

 1853 Temminck, the famous head of the Leyden Museum, made 

 the two following statements ^ : — 



" Seba rassemblait, sans choix ni ordre systematique, toutes sortes 

 d'objets curieux ; parmi les mammiferes, les monstres et les foetus 

 etaient les plus nombreux ; toute sa collection, conservee a I'esprit 

 de vin dans des bocaux de verre, etait, apres sa mort, en grande 

 partie deterioree." And : — 



" II y a plusieurs annees (cinquante ans a peu-pres) que je fis 

 1' acquisition de quelques bocaux, provenant des debris des collections 

 de Seba ; dans ce nombre se trcuvait un tres-jeune individu de 

 notre Spiniger ; il etait totalement decolore et a peine reconnaissable. 

 Ce sujet, qu'on a monte, se trouve dans nos galeries. C'est peut- 

 ^^re I'individu type du Gervus perpusillus ou bien de Gervus per- 

 gracilis de Seba." 



^ Perhaps Pallas visited Amsterdam in the interval, for in 1797 (Nov. 

 Glires, p. 314) he says of Mus longi'pes (Seba, vol. ii. plate xxix. fig. 2) : " vidi 

 quondam Amstelodami e Museo Sebffi reliquum specimen in collectione DN. 

 Chr. Paul Meier, mercatoris." Later on he speaks of this specimen as having 

 been a skin, so that it could not be one of our specimens, but might have been 

 one of the " Deux Gerboises de la petite espece " that went to Paris (see 

 below, p. 317). 



"" Esq. Z. Guin. pp. 202, 203 (1853). 



