Letter 3626

Seba received Sloane’s letter dated 29 April. Mr Fuller delivered the two books on plants and birds. Seba does not know whether Fuller is in England, Holland, or Hanover, where the King is staying. He was sad to hear of the death of Sloane’s librarian, John Gaspar Scheuchzer. Albertus Seba (1665-1736) was a Dutch pharmacist, zoologist, and collector. In 1711 he delivered drugs to the Russian court and was party to the sale of Frederick Ruysch’s collection to Peter the Great. He sold his personal collection of curiosities to the Tsar in 1716. Seba was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1728 and in 1734 he published a renown thesaurus of animals with detailed engravings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Seba).