CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 225 



catalogue as you could give us would be very grateful to 

 the public, and prove a direction to several others to make 

 farther observations of that kind, as well as your Catalogue 

 of Plants has done. I question not but you may give us 

 a great deal of information in the Catalogue of Insects, 

 as well as you have done already in the Histories of Birds 

 and Fish. I shall be very forward to give in my contri- 

 bution, which will be some observations on Formed Stones 

 and of the Exanguia marina. Dr. Plot will be likewise 

 as ready. 



We have performed our visit to Mr. Cole, and received 

 abundant satisfaction in our journey. He received us, 

 thought unknown to him, very friendly, and spent six 

 hours in showing us his collection, without any interrup- 

 tion, or the least sign of being weary. It consists alto- 

 gether of natural things, and seemed to us a very extra- 

 ordinary collection for one person (and who, perhaps, 

 had not the advantage of a liberal education to invite him 

 to such studies) to be able to amass together. 



We observed a Virginia animal of the cat-kind, seven 

 foot and a half long, and another of the colour and big- 

 ness of our wild cats, which he told us was the common 

 House-cat of Virginia ; also a Skunk, which he rendered 

 Putorius virginianus. This he told us would stink several 

 miles, and sometimes so infect the air as to cause a pesti- 

 lence. He showed us the horn of a Narhual, curiously 

 wreathed, and about five feet long. A Danish gentleman 

 told me he had seen a Narhual that had been taken by 

 some Hamburghers at Groneland, an. 1684, having two 

 very long horns, and that he suspected they generally 

 have so, and that the Unicorns of them are but monsters. 

 We also observed some of the Cornea lamina of a whale, 

 about three feet long and one broad, of a black colour. 

 We have some at our Museum of a whitish colour, and 

 about nine inches long ; also the blade of a Sword-fish 

 [Xiphias gladius\, caught about Swansea, in Glamorgan- 

 shire. He has several curious figured stones and shells, 

 found in the west of England and in South Wales ; very 



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