Notice of British Naturalists. — | 225 
part of Ray’s character, his admiration for friendship, and his 
cherishing of his friends. We never find him alone. Is he wri- 
ting a book? Some friend assists him in collecting the details. 
Is he making a tour to increase his stock of knowledge? Some 
brother in feeling is his constant companion. Is he engaged in 
editing the works of another? He is performing the last melan- 
choly duty for one who never forsook him, either in prosperity 
or adversity, 
This work may be said to be the beginning (of any importance) 
of the publication of local floras ; a branch of literature which 
has been of late so successfully cultivated; and which has had 
more effect in ascertaining and fixing this part of the natural his- 
tory of Great Britain, than even the writings of more scientific 
and learned authors. And it is greatly to be desired that it were 
more thoroughly prosecuted than it has hitherto been, in this our 
own land. Not only do we want such accounts of plants, but 
likewise of all the different departments of nature. From such 
Sources the great and commanding writers draw their informa- 
fon; and if these minor springs run dry, we cannot possibly ex- 
pect any truly important results. It was in this way that the 
steat Cuvier himself began, when engaged in his investiga- 
tions of the inferior animals, while a tutor in Normandy ; and 
he owed not a little to it in after life. Each district has its own 
Peculiarities which are easily observed by those who live there ; 
and thus to collect information will ever be found a labor which 
Is fully repaid by the pleasure which accrues from it. 'To make 
It public may cost more pains; but magazines and journals are 
always ready to notice any important fact or observation. Pre-| 
vious to this time botany had been much neglected over the 
whole of England; but this publication of Ray gave it a new~ 
Spring, and set up a model of what might be effected by others. 
Q hay’s own words, “many were prompted to those studies, and 
tind the plants they met with in their walks in the fields.” 
© had now hit upon a path along which his genius pointed, and 
for the following of which his peculiar talents fitted him. Hav- 
ing once begun, he eagerly pursued his researches; and not con- 
ent with what he met with in the neighborhood of Cambridge, 
he *xtended his investigations throughout the greatest part of 
England and Wales, and the south of Scotland. In these tours, 
© Was only absent at intervals, he was generally accompa- 
29 
‘Vol. Xxxvi, No, 2.—April-July, 1839. 
