130 RAY AND SOME OF HIS FELLOW-WORKERS 



I 



little to individual lawgivers ; they have been built up 

 piecemeal by the incessant proposal of amendments and 

 the retention of such as proved satisfactory in practice. 

 Without claiming for Ray that he possessed a genius for 

 the discovery of hidden relations, we may rank him as 

 the worthiest representative, with respect to knowledge 

 at least, of systematic natural history in the seventeenth 

 century. He made things much easier for Linnaeus, as 

 did Linnaeus in his turn for naturalists who now smile 

 at his mistakes. Both were capable of proposing hap- 

 hazard classifications, a fact which need not surprise us, 

 when we reflect how much reason we have to suspect 

 that the best arrangements of birds, teleostean fishes, 

 insects and flowering plants known to our own genera- 

 tion need to be largely recast. 



MARTIN LISTER 



1638-1712 



Historise animalium Angliae tres tractatus . . . de araneis . .". de cochleis 

 turn terrestribus turn fluviatilibus . . . de cochleis marinis. 4to. Lond., Ebor. 

 1678-81. 



J. Godartius of Insects, done into English . . . with notes. 4to. Lond. 

 1682. 



Historia Conehyliorum. Fol. Lond. 1685-92. 



Lister came of a Yorkshire family, which held the 

 manor of Thornton-in-Craven. He entered St. John's 

 College, Cambridge, in 1655, and was made fellow in 

 1660. Ray was teaching at Cambridge during these 

 years, and his example was no doubt influential in 

 causing Lister to occupy himself with natural history. 

 Being intended for the medical profession, he betook 

 himself to Montpellier, and falling in with Ray at that 

 place, shared his journey through France. In after- 

 life they were frequent correspondents, and it was no 



