416 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



swelling and pitting; but because the swelling did not 

 grow upon me, I imputed them to the bandage which I 

 used. 



I have this morning sent you, by carrier, the box of 

 rare plants you were pleased to lend me, and am sorry I 

 was not in case to use them. I hope they have received 

 no great harm. 



My wife is very, .much your servant, and in great 

 admiration of your extraordinary kindness to so mean a 

 person as is, 



Sir, 

 Your highly obliged and most humble 



servant and orator, 



JOHN RAY. 



To -his honoured friend, Dr. Hans Sloane, 



at. his house at the corner of Southampton street, % 



towards Bloomsbury square, London. 



Mr. RAY to Dr. HANS SLOANE. 



Black Notley, April 14, 1703. 



SIR, I have sent you this morning Hyacinthus am- 

 brosinus, which I now find to be yours , and am sorry I 

 should be so careless and forgetful as not to send it with 

 the last books, which inadvertently I thought and wrote 

 were all of yours I had in my hands. 



I give you most hearty thanks for the kind and generous 

 offer of the use of your exotic insects to describe. I have 

 not yet begun what I intended upon that subject, ex- 

 pecting Mr. Willughby's collections from Sir Thomas W. 

 I shall not pretend to a general history of insects, but 

 confine myself to those that are natives of our own country, 

 and such exotics as are in the museums and cabinets of 

 yourself and other curious persons about London and 

 elsewhere in England, so far as I can procure them. 

 When I have done my best, I believe all the species of 

 British insects which I have observed myself, or shall 

 procure from friends, will not amount to the fifth part of 



