18 
of the extreme kindness and consideration he had been 
the recipient of from him in particular. His stay in 
England, however, had almost exhausted his resources, 
and he informed LIXN^US of the great anxiety he was 
in lest his means should not allow of his spending the 
requisite time in Holland and procuring the necessary 
books for qualifying himself for the degree he was de- 
sirous of obtaining before returning to Sweden; he was, 
indeed, afraid he would be obliged to go home without 
further delay. Another fate was, however, in store for 
him. 
At that time there was living at Amsterdam a 
wealthy chemist of the name of ALBERT SEBA. 1 He had 
made himself a name as a natural scientist by reason 
of the zoological collections he had got together, which 
for that age were exceedingly large and notable. The 
various valuable specimens in these collections he was 
anxious to have reproduced in print with elucidatory 
descriptions; two bulky folios had already (in 1735) ap- 
peared, dealing with Quadrupeds and Snakes, and now 
he was desirous of getting Fishes (& Lower Animals) 
treated in like manner for a third folio volume. Owing, 
however, to increasing age and feebleness, he felt un- 
able to accomplish that himself single-handed, and was 
therefore on the look-out for a likely collaborator. 
LINNAEUS had been requested to undertake the task, but 
had declined owing to other work in which he was 
more interested, Fishes being by no means a favourite 
study of his. On meeting ARTEDI, though, he recalled 
to mind the request which SEBA had made to him, and 
in the full persuasion that no better collaborator could 
be found for the work in hand, he induced ARTEDI to 
return to Amsterdam with him and offer SEBA his ser- 
vices. The assumption was, naturally, that the remuner- 
ation offered would be liberal, and that ARTEDI would 
thereby be placed in a position to carry out the ar- 
dently cherished wish of getting his doctorship before 
leaving Holland. 
1 Born 1665. Died 1736. 
