20 



laws of systematisation which he had there evolved. 

 In every particular case, however, where I had any 

 suggestion or criticism to offer, he seemed prepared to 

 vindicate his own opinion to my entire discomfiture". 

 Artedi mentioned also, at the same opportunity, that he 

 meant to publish in collected form the works he had 

 up to then written, and that he was only waiting until 

 his task for Seba should be completed, to revise and 

 touch them up finally so as to make them ready for 

 the printer. Before Linnaeus bade him goodbye Artedi 

 showed him all his notes and his manuscripts, a thing 

 he had never done before in spite of their intimate 

 friendship. "In this way I had been detained", says 

 Linn.eus, "far beyond the time I had intended to stay, 

 and our colloquy had far exceeded the limits usual 

 with us, but, though my patience at the time was be- 

 ginning to fail, I would gladly have had our meeting 

 continue much longer than it did, had I known it was to 

 be our last." 



A few days later, on September 27 1735, Artedi 

 was a guest at Seba's house. The evening passed rap- 

 idly in lively converse with a number of congenial 

 friends, and it was rather late when Artedi left to go 

 home. In the darkness of the night, as he was groping 

 his way along the streets, with which we may conclude 

 he would not be very familiar, he stumbled, and, fall- 

 ing into one of the many canals that line the streets 

 of that city, was drowned. Thus, in such sorrowful 

 wise, was a period put to a career of great promise. 

 At the age of only 30 years the keen and gifted natura- 

 list was removed from the scene of his labours by so 

 simple yet fatal a misadventure. 



The accident was discovered on the following day 

 by the recovery of the body; this was first removed to 

 the City Hospital, and thence taken for decent and 

 seemly burial 1 by the man with whom Artedi had 



1 Artedi was buried on October 2 1735 (O. S.). From an ex- 

 tract taken from the Register of Deaths for the City of Amsterdam 

 we learn that his last dwelling-place was in Warmoestraat, near Nieu- 



