Difference between revisions of "Bestiarium Ignotum"
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No one is sure whether some wizard of the botanist's acquaintance tipped him off to the existence of the [[Atlantean rafting project]], or whether he himself deduced that there were some lifeforms in Europe which seemed to have few similarities (or tremendous differences) from the native species. But during Linnaeus's stay in Amsterdam in the early 1730's, when he was working on classification of new species with Professor Johan Burman in the city's botanical garden, he apparently began the first jottings on some odd creatures he had seen during his travels outside Sweden some years before, during the period he had been acquiring his MD. As so often happens, the jottings grew and grew as other scientists got wind of what Linnaeus was doing, and started sending him odd specimens to classify. | No one is sure whether some wizard of the botanist's acquaintance tipped him off to the existence of the [[Atlantean rafting project]], or whether he himself deduced that there were some lifeforms in Europe which seemed to have few similarities (or tremendous differences) from the native species. But during Linnaeus's stay in Amsterdam in the early 1730's, when he was working on classification of new species with Professor Johan Burman in the city's botanical garden, he apparently began the first jottings on some odd creatures he had seen during his travels outside Sweden some years before, during the period he had been acquiring his MD. As so often happens, the jottings grew and grew as other scientists got wind of what Linnaeus was doing, and started sending him odd specimens to classify. | ||
| − | This period came to an abrupt end in 1737, shortly after the publication of Linnaeus's ''Critica Botanica'', when a specimen [[basilisk]] got out of its cage in the botanical garden of the Dutch East India Company's Georg Clifford and wrought the predictable havoc in the neighborhood. | + | Linnaeus felt understandably uncomfortable letting anyone know about this dabbling in the taxonomy of the weirder side of the European animal kingdomwhat he was doing. Like many other scientists of the time, he was working in a system in which one's food and lodging usually depended on the good will of a wealthy patron. He therefore kept his research into the [[wizardly fauna]] of Europe under wraps. For a long time he was fortunate in that his patrons usually had extensive estates in which it was easy to retire to some remote shed hidden out at the estate's far fringes, |
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| + | This period came to an abrupt end in 1737, shortly after the publication of Linnaeus's ''Critica Botanica'', when a specimen [[basilisk]] got out of its cage in the private botanical garden of the Dutch East India Company's Georg Clifford and wrought the predictable havoc in the neighborhood. It was given out that Linnaeus was suffering from exhaustion (probably he was, having had to chase the basilisk over a significant acreage of Noord-Holland before he managed to catch it again) and he left for Paris shortly thereafter. | ||
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Revision as of 09:05, 11 June 2005
(Lat., "Unknown Bestiary") The suppressed natural-history book of the famous 18th-century Swedish botanist and taxonomist, Carolus or Carl Linnaeus.
No one is sure whether some wizard of the botanist's acquaintance tipped him off to the existence of the Atlantean rafting project, or whether he himself deduced that there were some lifeforms in Europe which seemed to have few similarities (or tremendous differences) from the native species. But during Linnaeus's stay in Amsterdam in the early 1730's, when he was working on classification of new species with Professor Johan Burman in the city's botanical garden, he apparently began the first jottings on some odd creatures he had seen during his travels outside Sweden some years before, during the period he had been acquiring his MD. As so often happens, the jottings grew and grew as other scientists got wind of what Linnaeus was doing, and started sending him odd specimens to classify.
Linnaeus felt understandably uncomfortable letting anyone know about this dabbling in the taxonomy of the weirder side of the European animal kingdomwhat he was doing. Like many other scientists of the time, he was working in a system in which one's food and lodging usually depended on the good will of a wealthy patron. He therefore kept his research into the wizardly fauna of Europe under wraps. For a long time he was fortunate in that his patrons usually had extensive estates in which it was easy to retire to some remote shed hidden out at the estate's far fringes,
This period came to an abrupt end in 1737, shortly after the publication of Linnaeus's Critica Botanica, when a specimen basilisk got out of its cage in the private botanical garden of the Dutch East India Company's Georg Clifford and wrought the predictable havoc in the neighborhood. It was given out that Linnaeus was suffering from exhaustion (probably he was, having had to chase the basilisk over a significant acreage of Noord-Holland before he managed to catch it again) and he left for Paris shortly thereafter.