Alexander Garden excuses himself for bothering Linnaeus with another letter before he has received an answer to his previous one, but he had got a last chance before autumn to send material to Linnaeus, since a ship was ready to sail for Europe. He had collected fish specimens, which he was eager to send before they were damaged by insects and other pests.
Garden had managed to acquire the latest edition of Systema naturae [Systema naturae, 10th edition; the 10th edition was published in two volumes, “Animalia” 1758 and “Vegetabilia” 1759. The third volume, “Mineralia” was never published] and had studied it very diligently and carefully. He praises it for its clarity and expresses an almost devoted gratitude to Linnaeus for that work.
The material sent consists of all fishes he has been able to collect since the previous letter, and the characters he has made of those species. These are to be regarded as tentative, and Garden wants Linnaeus to give him a straightforward feedback after a critical reading; this will make Garden even more thankful.
The sending also includes several specimens preserved in rum spirit, not only fish but also various insects, amphibians and reptiles, such as turtles, lizards, a young crocodile and others. All specimens are tagged, as in the previous sending, and Garden lists a number of fish species which he thinks are new or less well published. He has tried to make characters of those too, and he repeats his wish to get feedback on all texts.
In this work, Garden has used Systema naturae and Peter Artedi’s, Ichthyologia sive opera omnia de piscibus. Furthermore, he used Mark Catesby, but he considered that work [Garden means the The Natural history of Carolina] very unsatisfactory, full of errors and lies.
Garden has not made characters of reptiles and insects, since he had no experience or method in describing such creatures. He had been fully occupied with his professional work during the day, so the analysis of his fish specimens had taken place during nights and that had been very laborious. If the subject and Linnaeus’s letter had not stimulated him, he would have given up long ago.
Garden longs for Linnaeus’s answering letter but finds stimulation in Linnaeus’s previous letter to himself and to John Ellis. He wishes he could have more frequent and more reliable opportunities to send material to Linnaeus and to show him proofs of his gratitude and obedience.