LINN^US 331 



as a beetle (Limexylon navale), and pointed out that by 

 sinking the timber under water at the season when the 

 beetles emerge, the plague would be abated. It is said 

 that this simple remedy was completely successful.^ 



Early in his career he acquired by unsparing labour a 

 knowledge of the species of plants and a judgment in 

 arranging them which was very uncommon. When he 

 went to Holland as a young man of twenty-eight, he 

 was already qualified to direct the progress of systematic 

 botany, and the lead which he then took he never lost. 

 He had a fair knowledge of birds, and had worked at 

 quadrupeds, fishes and insects ; his acquaintance with 

 ores, crystals and petrifactions was slight, but he regularly 

 attended to them on his many journeys. 



In his own opinion and that of many of his contem- 

 poraries the greatest service which he rendered to natural 

 history was the creation of the so-called sexual system 

 of plants, a method which had no merit except that of 

 facility. He gave a far better proof of his insight by 

 insisting upon the necessity of framing at some future 

 time a natural system, and by indicating as early as 

 1738 sixty -five natural families of flowering plants. 

 Cataloguing and a rough arrangement were in his 

 opinion the indispensable preliminary to a truly natural 

 system of plants. His zoological system was the fullest 

 and best that had then been devised. His binomial 

 nomenclature, and many of his classes, orders, genera 

 and species form part of the permanent fabric of zoology 

 and botany. He laboured at the improvement of 

 museums and botanic gardens, and left behind him a 

 careful description of the flora and fauna of his own 

 country. 



Linnaeus was deficient in the patience and candour 



• Linnaeus, Iter West-Gothland, p. 173 ; Syatema NaturcE (under Cantharis). 



