Gronovius, Laurence Theodore

, son of the preceding, was born at Ley den in 1730. He took the degree of doctor of laws, and, like his father, attained to the chief civil honours of his native place. From him he imbibed a taste for natural history, and, as we have already mentioned, edited the latest and completest edition of the “Flora Virginica.” He particularly excelled in the knowledge of fishes but most departments of systematic zoology engaged his attention. He published in 1754, his “Museum Ichthyologicum,” a handsome folio, with ample descriptions of the species. The second part appeared in 1756, accompanied by descriptions of the serpents in his father’s museum. In 1763 appeared the “Zoophylacii Gronoviani fasciculus primus,” containing descriptions o a few quadrupeds, more amphibia, and a still greater number of fishes, all from the same museum; the latter illustrated by 13 good plates, exhibiting 38 species. The second fasciculus of the same work, published in 1764, describes the insects of his collection, of which numerous species are engraved on four copper plates. A third and last, with three plates, came out in 1781, after the death of the author, which happened in 1777. He published in 1760 a very valuable work in 4to, entitled “Bibliotheca Regni Animalis atque Lapidei,” on the plan of the “Bibliothecae Botanicse” of Linnoeus and Seguier, with an excellent Index Rerum, highly useful in such a publication. He furnished, moreover, an appendix of 65 quarto pages to the said work of Seguier. ¹