Serendipity language was by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann, Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a (lost) painting of Bianca Cappello by Giorgio Vasari by reference to a Persian fairy tale, "The Three Princes of Serendip". The princes, he told his correspondent, were "always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of". The name comes from "Serendip", an old name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence "Sarandib" by Arab traders. It is derived from the Sanskrit "Siṃhaladvīpaḥ" (Siṃhalaḥ, Sri Lanka + dvīpaḥ, island).
Horace Mann Jr. is credited with the discovery of more than 100 species. Horace Mann Jr. was born in Boston on February 25, 1844. He was the eldest of three sons of education reformer Horace Mann and his second wife, Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, and the grandson of Nathaniel Peabody. Mann was educated by his parents, who believed in teaching through hands-on study, at home in West Newton, Massachusetts. In 1853, the family moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where the elder Horace Mann established Antioch College. Although not old enough for college enrollment when first they arrived, young Horace had an inquisitive mind