394 
LINN £US IN 1734 AND 1735-. 
We have to add byway of conclusion, that Linn.®us with his 
travelling companion left this city (Hamburgh) with great satisfaction, 
having had an opportunity of seeing and examining the public library, 
in which he perused with great eagerness the Danubius Marsillii, 
also the principal cabinets of natural history, the botanical gardens 
and the private libraries, in one of which he was much pleased at 
finding the .t ,al work of Ray, which he had so long wished to 
see. He above all thought himself extremely happy, in obtaining 
a sight of the seven- headed Hydra , which the celebrated Seba at Am- 
sterdam inserted in his Thesaurus , as a curiosity at Hamburgh. To 
a naturalist of his experience, who had never seen such a phenomenon, 
its existence appeared at first an utter impossibility. But having 
viewed this monster, at the house of a merchant where it laid deposited 
in a box about an ell and an half long and embalmed in a perfeCl man- 
ner, he could not sufficiently admire and examine it, till after the most 
scrupulous and minute examination, he finally discovered in the wide 
gaping mouths of the heads of this Hydra, which had been a little 
shrivelled and worn by the edge of time, that its teeth bore a strong 
resemblance to those of the weasels. A person worthy of being depen- 
ded on, also informed hini, that this rare master-piece of> nature had for- 
merly been exhibited on an altar, in a catholic church at Prague , whence 
it had been first removed by the Swedish Count of KoeniCsmark, after 
the last capture of that city; that the Count made a present of it to a 
Nobleman of the name of Bielken, whose heirs sent it some years 
after to be sold at Hamburgh. They affixed so high a price to it, that its 
acquisition was even refused Frederick IV. King of Denmark, who 
bid gpjOOQ rix-dollars, and it is probable that it will after all become the 
3 property 
