204 Half-Hours with the Old Naturalists. [April, 
exhibited the spore-capsules of the so-called male fern to 
Arnold Syen, then Professor of Botany at Leyden. His 
illustrations of the spores themselves and of the sporangia 
are the same as those given by more recent authorities. 
His last great task, however, was the completion of his 
treatise on Bees, — a work involving immense labour. Daily 
from 6 a.m. till noon he was engaged in dissedting and 
drawing. And this work he could no longer perform, as 
formerly, with unmixed satisfaction. Bourignon continually 
upbraided him, in her letters, for his devotion to “ worldly” 
pursuits. In the language of Boerhaave he laboured 
“ amidst torments and agonies of mind and self-reproaches.” 
When his task was completed he threw the manuscript and 
drawings on one side, and seemed utterly careless as to 
their destination. Either this treatise or his letter to Boc- 
coni on the growth of coral must be regarded as his last 
work. In this epistle he regards coral as a cryptogamous 
plant analogous to the ferns, — an error which he would 
assuredly not have embraced if he had enjoyed the oppor- 
tunity of studying them whilst growing. 
We thus come to the end of his researches. It is said 
that he burnt a considerable proportion of his manuscripts 
in obedience to Bourignon, and that others would have 
shared the same fate had they not previously been sold to 
Thevenot. Any attempt to introduce scientific conversation 
now, so far from giving him pleasure, led merely to an out- 
burst of anger, which might have been ludicrous had he 
been less to be pitied. 
Swammerdam’s only wish seemed now to retire from the 
“world,” and devote the residue of his life to meditation. 
The family troubles did not subside. The elder Swammer- 
dam broke up his house, and went to live with his daughter 
and son-in-law, leaving our poor misguided naturalist home- 
less. In this extremity he attempted to sell his museum, 
but found no purchasers. In fadt his natural perverseness 
of disposition and his devotion to Bourignon had repelled 
many of his former well-wishers. His old friend Steno had 
accepted an official position at Florence, had joined the 
Catholic Church, and had been raised to the dignity of 
Bishop, in partibus, of Titiopolis. The news of Swammer- 
dam s distressed condition having been carried to Italy, this 
prelate, at the instigation of the Grand Duke, reopened the 
negociations of 1668, offering his former friend and colleague 
the sum of 3000 crowns for his museum, and promising him 
an asylum at the Florentine Court. At the same time it 
was hinted that his adhesion to Catholicism, if not an 
