E, Topsell, F. Willughby, J. Ray 259 



times, as the flying machine is in ours, was in the air, and 

 just as one now hears our undergraduates discussing carbu- 

 retters, air-locks, sparking-plugs, and various vintages of 

 petrol, so in the times of Queen Elizabeth, the keen young 

 men of Shakepeare's Plays discussed the various kinds of 

 hawks and their habits. 



In our last chapter we have sketched the contribu- 

 tions which Ray had made to the science of Botany ; but 

 he has further claims on our regard. He and Francis 

 Willughby, both of Trinity College, Cambridge, attacked 

 similar problems in the animal kingdom. Wiilughby was 

 the only son of wealthy and titled parents, while Ray was 

 the son of a village blacksmith. But the older universities 

 are great levellers, and Ray succeeded in infusing into his 

 fellow student at Cambridge his own genuine love for 

 natural history. With Willughby, he started forth on his 

 methodical investigations of animals and plants in all the 

 accessible parts of the world. Willughby died young and 

 bequeathed a small benefaction and his manuscripts to his 

 older friend. After his death, Ray undertook to revise and 

 complete his " Ornithology," and therein paid great attention 

 to the internal anatomy, to the habits and to the eggs of 

 most of the birds he described. Further, he edited Willughby 's 

 "History of Fishes," but perpetuated the mistake of his 

 predecessors in retaining whales in that group. In rather 

 rationalistic mood, he argues that the fish which swallowed 

 Jonah must have been a shark. Perhaps the weakest of 

 their three great histories "The History of Insects" was 

 such owing to the fact that Ray edited it in his old age. The 

 Ray Society for the publication of works on Natural Science 

 was founded in his honour in 1842. 



Robert Hooke, a Westminster boy and, later, a student 

 at Christ Church, was at once instructor and assistant to 

 Boyle. The year that the Royal Society received their 

 charter, they appointed Hooke curator, and his duty was 

 " to furnish the Society " every day they met with three or 

 four considerable experiments. This formidable task he 

 fulfilled in spite of the fact that " the fabrication of instru- 

 ments for experiments was not commonly known to work- 

 men," and that he never received " above 50 a year and 



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