74 MEMOIR OF 



which they had seen in High and Low Germany, 

 and especially about the Danube and the Rhine, 

 were lost on their return.* This event, no doubt, 

 occasioned the work of Mr Willughby on fishes 

 to have been far less perfect than otherwise i 

 would have been. Mr Willughby made a col 

 lection, during his travels, of birds, fishes, shells, 

 fossils, seeds, dried plants, coins, many of which 

 are now in existence at Wollaton Hall. 



While he was in Spain, he found a letter from 

 Dr Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, importunately 

 urging him to make a voyage to the Peak 01 

 Teneriffe, adding, that if Mr Willughby must 

 return home, and Mr Ray would undertake it, the 

 Royal Society would defray all the expenses and 

 send to him at Cadiz all necessary instructions, 

 and a catalogue of the observations which they 

 desired to have made. 



December 17> 1665, Mr Willughby being in 

 the thirtieth year of his age, lost his excellent 

 father, Sir Francis Willughby, Knt. and became 

 possessed of his estates, and with them, of the 

 noble mansion of Wollaton Hall in Nottingham- 

 shire, and of Middleton Hall in Warwickshire; 

 the latter of those became his general place of 

 residence during the remainder of his life, though 

 we sometimes find him at Wollaton Hall, and 

 some of Mr Ray's letters to different persons are 

 dated thence. At Middleton Hall he had a good 

 library, classical and philosophical, containing 



* Philosophical Letters, p. 180, 181. 



