4o6 ACCOUNTS RESPECTING LINN^US. 



her aid in this singular and striking phenomenon. To remove all 

 doubts, I took the other crab still covered with the supposed hair, di- 

 vested it of that cover which nature has laid on the backs of all those 

 species, and showed him on every one the appearance of an human 

 face. His attention was still more engrossed, at my making him perceive 

 through the glass, that those little filaments which sometimes appear 

 on the back of those crabs and resemble a hairy cover are not hair, if 

 viewed with the naked eye, but a sort of coraline moss^ which some- 

 times settles upon those crabs, in the same manner as there are among 

 some sorts of the small shell fish, certain species encrusted with a 

 madreporous or milleporous sediment. 



LiNN^us convinced himself in the same manner, that the number 

 of prickles on the back of the Cancer Hirtdlus, which he had fixed at 

 ten (thorace hirto, utrimque quinque dentato) was not a solid description; 

 but that most of them bore only eight, some nine, and the smallest 

 number ten. I afterwards gave a separate description and representa- 

 tion of this species. 



The elder Linn^us, gave no left u res at that time, but I wished 

 at least for an opportunity to hear his son. The latter just read a lec- 

 ture in the forenoon upon botany. The time having elapsed with our 

 conversation upon Zoology, I left his father with the promise accord- 

 ing to his request, to come and see him every day during the whole of 

 my stay at Upsal. 



The younger Linnaeus was somewhat taller than his father, but at 

 that time less corpulent. His delivery was fluent, but mixed with a 

 certain cold indifference. It appeared as if his exertions were rather 

 a stria performance of the duties of his station, than a real zeal flow- 

 ing 



