No. 58. — 1907.] JOAN GIDEON LOTEN, F.R.S. 



245 



facts, which are the disappointingly meagre result of the re- 

 search I have made in all the sources that seemed likely to 

 yield information.* 



As we have seen, Lot en left the East for good in 1758, arriv- 

 ing in Holland in June of that year. He was then in the prime 

 of life, was possessed of considerable means, and had no family 

 ties.f He was therefore able to devote his whole time to his 

 favourite study of natural history, and to carry on corre- 

 spondence on the subject with various European naturalists. 

 What his immediate movements were, after his arrival in 

 Holland, I cannot say ; but that he was in England in 1760 is 

 certain. J In that year was published the second part of 

 Edwards's Gleanings of Natural History, and in the list of 

 subscribers to the work, prefixed to this part, appears the 

 name of " John Gideon Loten, Esq." 



The Royal Society, in recognition of the services that Loten 

 had rendered to the cause of science, this same year (1760) 

 conferred upon him the honour of their fellowship. His certi- 

 ficate^ a copy of which I owe to the courtesy of Mr. Robt. 



* The correspondence and memoirs of some of the men of science 

 who lived in the latter half of the eighteenth century may possibly con- 

 tain some mention of Loten. 



t His two grandchildren accompanied their father. 



% That he was in England in 1759 seems evident from the fact that 

 some of Edwards's plates, painted from specimens belonging to Loten, 

 are dated in that year (see further on). 



§ It is signed by Professor Allamand, M. Maty, Th. Birch, Go win 

 Knight, and George Edwards. The last of these was the author of the 

 books already mentioned and more fully dealt with below. The Rev. 

 Thomas Birch was secretary of the Royal Society, 1752-85. Matthew 

 Maty, a fellow-comrtryman of Loten's, was at this time an under- 

 librarian in the British Museum (in 1772 principal librarian, in 1762 

 foreign secretary, and in 1765 principal secretary of the Royal Society). 

 Go win Knight was the first principal librarian of the British Museum, 

 from its foundation in 1756 until his death in 1772. (See Diet, of Nat. 

 Biog. regarding all four men.) Jean Nicolas Sebastien Allamand, a 

 Swiss, was professor of philosophy and natural history at the univer- 

 sity of Franeker in Friesland. He was elected a fellow of the Royal 

 Society in 1746. His name is perpetuated in that of the genus of 

 flowering creepers Allamanda. Evidently the above certificate was 

 written by him. (See further regarding him in Noav. Biog. Gen. ii.) 



