42 NATURAL HISTORY. 



the fashion too much is) depend upon his riches, and 

 spend his time in sloth and sports, idle-company keeping, 

 and luxury ; but practising what was laudable and good, 

 and what might be of service to mankind.' 



Had it not been for the affectionate care of his friend 

 Ray, the world would not have been in a position to 

 estimate, even in part, what it had lost in Francis 

 Willughby. For, though he had been so long engaged 

 in scientific researches, Willughby, up to the time of his 

 death, had published hardly any of his observations. He 

 had, in fact, published nothing independently, save two or 

 three entomological papers in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society, of which he was a Fellow. Ray, however, 

 undertook to edit and bring out the mass of scientific 

 notes which Willughby had for the most part 'rhapsodi- 

 cally written in Latin,' and which he had left in prepara- 

 tion for his contemplated work on animals ; and this task 

 Ray discharged with the utmost fidelity. Indeed, much 

 controversy, of a wholly profitless nature, has arisen as to 

 the respective share of the original author and of the 

 editor, in the zoological treatises which subsequently 

 appeared under the name of Willughby. We may take 

 it for granted that much of the merit of these treatises 

 was due to Ray, but that their groundwork should be 

 credited to Willughby. On this point, we have Ray's 

 own testimony ; who says that, on examining Willughby's 

 manuscripts after his death, he ' found the several animals 

 of every kind, both birds and beasts, and fishes and insects, 

 digested into a method of his own contriving, but few of 

 their descriptions or histories so full or perfect as he 

 intended them.' 



