Mar. 31, 1908. The Queensland Naturalist. 21 
by way of France, and Holland again. In 1745-6, he 
further visited Gothland and Zeatland. Each or these 
journeys was tiie occasion of special books being written 
and i^ublished, principally in the interests of local botany 
of these regions. 
Besides going abroad, he toured his own native land, 
Sweden, publishing works devoted to its Fauna and to its 
Flora in 1745. 
The naturalist who was bent on travelling, he impressed 
with the expediency of visiting his own country especially ; 
urging this in a special work, entitled, “ Oratio''de necessitate 
peregrinatantis intra patriam.^^ 
Materia Medica. 
W hilst interested in descriptive and systematic natural 
history, Linmeus did not neglect the economic features 
of his subject ; the Materia Medica^ that he issued for his 
Upsala University Students in 1749, bearing witness of 
this. In the introductory section of the Systema Natnrce 
that deals with plant life, this reference to the uses of plants 
he especially enjoins on the descriptive botanist. 
A Philosophic Naturalist. 
He also appreciated Nature from the broader stand- 
point of a philosopher as his Philosophia Botanica, .much 
of his Mantissa Plantarum, and especially his “ Prole psis 
Plantarum ” (dealing with homologies of plant organs) 
contained in the latter indicates. 
Although he gave concise descriptions of the genera 
of living things, which have always been commended, 
in lus Genera Plantarum, that in consequence has been 
referred to as perhaps the most in^portant and valuable 
of his works,” still he maintained that character non facit 
genus. This position he amplifies in his Systema Naturae 
(Botany ; Introductory Section, No. 26). “ Genus itaque 
omne est naturale confirmante natura, saltum non faciente. 
Character ergo non constituat umquam genus sed sedulo 
secundum genus naturae conficiendus est.” : statements that 
may be expanded in the way E. Meyrick has done. “ It is 
sometimes (this entomologist writes), said that genera are 
artificial creations. If by this is intended that they consist 
of a, certain number of species having no other relation 
than the common possession of certain characters, the 
statement is not true of any sound system, and the system- 
atist that makes it stands self-condemned ; but if it be only 
taken to mean that the precise limits of genera m.ay often 
be differently conceived by different workers, it is to that 
extent quite true.” Handh]c. Brit. Lepidoptera, p. 
11, 1895. I am gl^d to pay this tribute to an 
entomologist like Meyi^ick, who has done so much to demon- 
