(' 40 ) 



EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



The Address delivered by the President, Dr. A. Giiuther, at the last 

 Anniversary Meeting of the Liuueau Society of Loudon, refers to and 

 describes the " Fishes from Linne's private collection, many of which 

 have served as types or cotypes for the species enumerated in the * Systema 

 Naturae.' and which have never been catalogued." We learn that the 

 collection consists now entirely of dried half-skins of fish either loose or 

 mounted on folio sheets of paper ; many have been fixed on cardboards, but 

 this was done at a comparatively recent period. This method of preserving 

 fish, like specimens of a kortus siccus, seems to have been first employed 

 by Johann Friederich Gronow,- who described it in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions,' and whose collection of similarly prepared skins is still pre- 

 served in the Natural History Museum. 



"We are informed by Sir J. E. Smith himself] that Linne's private 

 collection contaiued, at the time of its purchase, 158 specimens of dried 

 fish-skins, beside some in spirits. These latter were not kept by Smith ; 

 perhaps he did not sufficiently care for them to have them sent over from 

 Sweden with the other parts of the collection." Dr. Giinther makes the 

 number of specimens at present in the Society's possession to be rather 

 higher, viz. 1 08, the discrepancy being probably due to the circumstance 

 that when two small specimens of the same species were mounted on the 

 same sheet of paper they were counted as one by the person who prepared 

 the original inventory. At any rate there is no evidence which might lead 

 one to suspect that any of the specimens have beeu lost since they came 

 into the possession of the Society. 



The collection was kept for a great many years in one of Linne's own 

 cabinets, which, however well it may have answered its purpose in the pure 

 air of Linne's residence, is quite unsuitable in the dust-laden atmosphere 

 of Piccadilly ; and the wonder is, how little the specimens have suffered 

 under the accumulation of matter in the wrong place. In order to render 

 them more secure in the future, the Council has ordered them to be trans- 

 ferred to dust-proof glass-topped boxes, in which they are so arranged that, 



* " A Method of preparing Specimens of Fish by drying their Skins as 

 practised by John Frederick Gronovius, M.D., at Leyden " (' Philos. Trans.' 

 vol. xlii. 1744, p. 57). 



t ' Mem. and Corresp. of the late Sir J. E. Smith,' vol. i. p. 114. 



