Seba, Albert

, an apothecary of Amsterdam, who died in 1736, prepared a splendid description, with plates, of his own museum, in four large folio volumes, which came out between 1-734 and 1765. His three lattervolumes were posthumous publications. Many Cape plants are here engraved, and amongst them one of the genus Sebea, so called, in honour of him. Yet Seba does not deserve to rank as a scientific botanist; nor did Linna3us, who knew him, an4 by whose recommendation he employed Artedi to arrange his fishes, ever think him worthy to be commemorated in a genus. If, however, we compare him with numbers who have been so commemorated, he will not appear to so much disadvantage; for as a collector he stands rather high. ³