8 LETTER FROM JOHN RAY TO AUBREY. 



I have seen many pheasants in a little grove by the city of Florence, but I suppose they might 

 have been brought in thither from some foreign country by the Great Duke. 



Surely you mistook what I wrote about elms. I never to my knowledge affirmed that the most 

 common elm grows naturally in the north : but only thought that though it did not grow there, yet 

 it might be native of England : for that all trees doe not grow in all countreys or parts of England. 

 The wych-hazel, notwithstanding its name, is nothing akin to the corylus, but a true elm. 



The story concerning the drawing out the nail driven crosse the wood-pecker's hole is without 

 doubt a fable. 



Asseveres and vesicates are unusuall words, and I know not whether the wits will allow them. 



[The name of Jolin Ray holds a pre-eminent place amongst the naturalists of Great Britain. He 

 was the first in this country who attempted a classification of the vegetable kingdom, and his system 

 possessed many important and valuable characteristics. Ray was the son of a blacksmith at Black 

 Notley, near Braintrec, in Essex, where he was born, in 1627. The letter here printed sufficiently 

 indicates his natural shrewdness and intelligence. One of his works here referred to is entitled 

 " Three Physico-Tlieological Discourses concerning Chaos, the Deluge, and the Dissolution of the 

 World," 1692. There is a well-written memoir of Ray in the " Penny Cyclopaedia." Aubrey's 

 portrait, by the celebrated miniature-painter Samuel Coopei", alluded to above, is not now extant ; 

 but another portrait of him by Faithome is preserved in the Ashmolcan Museum, and has been 

 several times engraved. A print from the latter drawing accompanied the " Memoirs of Aubrey," 

 published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society. Cooper died in 1672, and was buried in the old 

 church of St. Pancras, London. Ray visited Italy between the years 1663 and 1666. J. B.] 



