ÖFVERSIGT AF K. VETENSK.-AKAl). FÖRHANDLINGAR 1895, N:0 9. 617 



copies, as the one which is published by Lady Smith') and 

 vvhich should be the copy sent from Acrel contains only: ;>Co- 

 rallia magno numero, sed non adnotata». Sir James again says 

 in his own account of the coilections in a letter to Stöver-) 

 that »the Fossils are numerous but mostly bad specimens and 

 in bad condition». Soon after the Linnean coilections came into 

 the possession of Sir James Smith the zoological part thereof 

 was unfortunately rearranged by the owner himself, according to 

 his peculiar systematic views. He mingled numerous other spe- 

 cimens with the ancient ones,^) gave them new naraes on new 

 labels and many of the oid Linnean oues were destroyed. A 

 part of the coUection was sold by auction, chiefly minerals. 

 The Linnean Society, which became the possessor of the coilec- 

 tions after Sir James Smith, has with praiseworthy piety pre- 

 served the botanical coilections and the library, but as to the 

 zoological coilections, with exception af the shells, this has not 

 been the case. When I in 1861 visited London I saw some 

 fossils of the old Linnean museum still in the Linnean Society's 

 rooms. There were, for instance, some Silurian brachiopoda 

 from Gotland, also raentioned and described in Hanley's book, 

 and a specimen of Goniophyllum pyramidale from Gotland, 

 which LlNN^us, with a keen perception of its affinity, had 

 placed together with Calceola sandalina on the same piece of 

 card-board. When I in 1874 revisited the Linnean Society 

 nothing was to be seen of the Linnean fossils. It was said, 

 that they had »disappeared» or been lost during the moving of 

 the Society from their old rooms to the new ones.*) 



Happily the descriptions and figures in the »Corallia bal- 

 tica» are to some extent a compensation for the loss of the 



') See Memoir and Correspondence of Sir James Edward Smith by Lady Smith, 

 VoL I, p. 114. 



^) Stöver, Leben des Ritters Carl von Linné. 2r Theil, p. 163. 



^) Hanlev, Ipsa Linnsei Concbylia, p. 2. 



^) Hanley, 1. c. p. 129 also says: »Mr. Sharpe and myself were so fortunate as 

 to have examined the collection previous to the ill-judged and unauthorised 

 attempt of a tyro to rearrange the collection in modern genera.» 



