CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 121 



received from that island. The difference in these two 

 persons' observations ought therefore to be farther ex- 

 amined by correspondents in that and other places 

 where blacks inhabit. 



Purslain, Mr. Glover says, is also very common in 

 Virginia, and troublesome too to the tobacco-planters. 

 Asarum is much used by the Indians to provoke vomit- 

 ing, and they are frequently troubled with violent colics, 

 which oftentimes terminate in palsies. **** 

 Wrentham, Feb. 11, 167|. 



Mr. RAY to Dr. LISTEB. 



DEAR FRIEND, I received yours of February 8, and 

 have resolved to follow your advice, in adding to the 

 Ornithology an account of the ordering of birds for sing- 

 ing, as also something of falconry; and, besides, an 

 epitome of the art of fowling. To this purpose I sent 

 for the books you minded me of about those subjects. 

 I find that the author of the ' Gentleman's Recreation,' 

 in what I have read in him, is a mere plagiary ; all that 

 he hath concerning fowling being transcribed out of 

 Markham's ' Art of Fowling,' without once mentioning 

 his author, as you may soon find by comparing them. 

 I suspect the like of his falconry. What he writes of the 

 Haggard Falcon* is contracted out of Latham. When I 

 shall have compared the rest with Latham and Turbervil, 

 I shall be able to tell you whether it be not borrowed of 

 them. 



As for the tractate concerning singing-birds in the 

 ' Epitome of the Art of Husbandry,' I do not find what 

 is there delivered so manifestly purloined from any one 

 author, although in Aldrovand and Olina I find the sub- 

 stance of most he hath ; only that about the manner of 

 breeding Canary-birds \_Fringilla canaria] is either his 



* A falcon that is not steady, but bears away its quarry down wind. 



