200 GILBERT WHITE AND OTHERS 



Pray now, set to work, or else when you come to Cam- 

 bridge look out for squalls. I shall most assuredly put 

 every local member of the B.O.U. up to sending you to 

 Coventry or Corinth, I mean the city of the seceders, 

 not of the two seas, or some other very disagreeable 

 place if you do not.* 



Of the older naturalists Newton had the greatest 

 reverence for Willughby and Ray, of whom he wrote 

 (" Dictionary of Birds," p. 7) : — 



^The foundation of scientific Ornithology was laid 

 by the joint labours of Francis Willughby (born 1635, 

 died 1672) and John Ray (born 1628, died 1705), for it 

 is impossible to separate their share of work in Natural 

 History more than to say that, while the former more 

 especially devoted himself to Zoology, Botany was the 

 favourite pursuit of the latter. Together they studied, 

 together they travelled, and together they collected. 

 Willughby, the younger of the two, and at first the 

 other's pupil, seems to have giadually become the master, 

 but dying before the promise of his life was fulfilled, his 

 ^vritings were given to the world by his friend Ray, who, 

 adding to them from his own stores, published the 

 " Ornithologia " m Latin in 1676, and in English with 

 many emendations in 1678. 



Writing (April 24, 1906) to Mr. T. Whitaker, who was 

 then preparing his " Birds of Nottinghamshire," Newton 

 reminded him to pay tribute to the memory of Willughby. 



There is, however, a much greater Nottinghamshire 

 ornithologist [than Wolley] of whom you should give 

 some account, and that is Francis Willughby of Wollaton 

 (born 1635, died 1672), to whom justice, I think, has 

 never been done, nor has his life been properly written ; 

 for he was so overshadowed by his friend Ray, who was 

 his senior by a few years only, but survived him and saw 

 to the pubhcation of his " Birds " and *' Fishes." 



* Letter to H. B. Tristram, July 3, 1862. 



