The Biographer's Tale
““By the road hung a maxilla inferiori equi, which had 6 incisores sat obtusos et detritos 2 caninos et distincto spatio, 12 molares utrinque. If I knew how many dentes et quales, and how many dugs each animal had, and ubi, I think I could devise a methodum naturalissimum omnium quadripedum.”
THE MENTION of dugs and teeth suggests he was thinking of clarifications beyond the simple quadruped, though he had not, at this early point, conceived of the mammal. He noted it in his little notebook and ...continued on his way north. He was wearing, he tells us, “a little unpleated coat of West Gothland cloth with facings and a collar of worsted shag, neat leather breeches—purchased secondhand at an auction—a pig-tailed wig, a cap of green fustian, a pair of top boots and a small leather bag, nearly two feet long and not quite so wide, with hooks on one side so it can be shut and hung up.” In this bag he carried a shirt, two pairs of half-sleeves, two nightcaps, an inkhorn, a pen-case, a magnifying glass and a small spy-glass, a gauze veil as protection from midges, his journal and a stock of sheets of paper stitched together, to press plants between (both in folio), a comb, and his manuscripts on ornithology, his Flora Uplandica, his Characteres Generici.MoreLess
THE MENTION of dugs and teeth suggests he was thinking of clarifications beyond the simple quadruped, though he had not, at this early point, conceived of the mammal. He noted it in his little notebook and ...continued on his way north. He was wearing, he tells us, “a little unpleated coat of West Gothland cloth with facings and a collar of worsted shag, neat leather breeches—purchased secondhand at an auction—a pig-tailed wig, a cap of green fustian, a pair of top boots and a small leather bag, nearly two feet long and not quite so wide, with hooks on one side so it can be shut and hung up.” In this bag he carried a shirt, two pairs of half-sleeves, two nightcaps, an inkhorn, a pen-case, a magnifying glass and a small spy-glass, a gauze veil as protection from midges, his journal and a stock of sheets of paper stitched together, to press plants between (both in folio), a comb, and his manuscripts on ornithology, his Flora Uplandica, his Characteres Generici.MoreLess
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