LINN^US IN 1734 AND I735. 393 



the aid of the devil. If, for instance, they go out a hunting, and 

 wish to know what game it would be best for them to shoot on that day, 

 or in which distrift they may meet with it soonest, they take their magic 

 drum, and having laid a little brass ring upon it, beat it with two small 

 sticks, then drop suddenly upon the ground, as it were, in a trance, 

 and utter a kind of howl not unlike that of the dogs*. By the 

 spot on which the ring happens to fall, they prognosticate the good 

 or ill success of their chace. 



The second curiosity which he showed us, consisted of an excellent 

 colleQion of inseds, gathered in his two tours through Lapland and 

 Dalecarlia, and neatly pasted upon paper ; their number amounted to 

 one thousand, among which there were sixty-five different species of 

 flies, besides the inseft which was known to the ancients by the name 

 of Oestrum, — a wasp, of which no modern naturalist had as yet given an 

 accurate description, whose size is considerably large, and not unlike 

 that of the fly, which makes such great havoc among the rein-deer in 

 Lapland, as to kill annually several thousands of them. The Swedes 

 would fain give a million of their money for an efficacious remedy to 

 extirpate that vermin. 



We have in other respefts found an opportunity of obtaining an ac- 

 count of LiNN^us, written in good Latin by an eminent Swede; also 

 a short description of his last journey through Dalecarlia, and of the 

 companions who attended him on that tour, from which we v.ill occa- 

 sionally give extraO-s. 



* Linn,?; us also informed us, that no Laplander could sing, but instead of singing ut- 

 tered a noise, nhich resembled the barking of dogs. ' - ■ ■ j < ■ ■• -u. ■ . -. 



E e e 



We 



