24 NATURAL HISTORY. 



a name which doubtless was often fully deserved. In 

 this particular instance, however, we have sufficient 

 evidence that Ray's collegiate ' exercises ' were some- 

 thing more than formal platitudes; for some of them 

 (as, for example, his 'Wisdom of God in the Creation') 

 were subsequently published in an enlarged form, and 

 met with the greatest acceptance. 



Ray's taste for science seems to have been of early 

 growth ; but his first published work was a * Catalogue of 

 Cambridge Plants/ which was given to the world in 1660. 

 It was merely an alphabetical list of all the plants with 

 which he was acquainted as growing round Cambridge, 

 the localities for each being appended. It was neverthe- 

 less much more genuinely scientific than the ' Herbals,' 

 which constituted the chief botanical literature of the 

 day; and it was so far successful, that Ray conceived 

 the idea of preparing a similar catalogue for the whole 

 of England. With this object, he took two journeys (in 

 1 66 1 and 1662) with his bosom-friend Willughby and 

 some others of his intimates, through portions of England 

 and Scotland, in which he investigated all the objects of 

 scientific or antiquarian interest which came in his way, 

 but more especially the plants and animals. He had 

 previously (in 1658) undertaken by himself a similar 

 journey through parts of England and Wales, and having 

 kept a daily journal, the record of these three journeys 

 was published after his death by Dr Derham. These 

 ' Itineraries,' though not intended by their writer for publi- 

 cation, are highly interesting as giving us a glimpse of 

 the aspect of many well-known places about the middle 

 of the seventeenth century; such observations being 



