ABSTRACT
Peter Forsskal was Swedish bom and from the age of 10 took up studies of oriental philology. In addition, he also studied botany and zoology under Linnaeus at Uppsala, initially merely as a hobby. O. F. Muller studied theology and music, and became the teacher of the sons of countess Schulin, the widow of a former prime minister. J. C. Fabricius was a distant relative of Otto Fabricius. They became close friends, and Fabricius is the only one of Linnaeus’s many pupils who approached the master’s stature. As he could obtain no permanent occupation in Copenhagen he accepted a position as professor of natural history, economics, and political science at the small Kiel University in Schleswig-Holstein, at the time a Danish duchy. Fabricius was a modest and helpful person. He was the leading entomologist of the 18th century and made Copenhagen a world center for the study of the morphology and systematics of arthropods.
