THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 135 



All the innumerable fables which had passed 

 from book to book in the old bestiaries disap- 

 peared, for Ray ever showed a healthy scepti- 

 cism with regard to the marvellous. He, 

 further, edited Willughby's "History of 

 Fishes," but perpetuated the mistake of his 

 predecessors in retaining whales amongst that 

 group. In a rather rationalistic mood he 

 argues that the fish which swallowed Jonah 

 must have been a shark. Perhaps the weakest 

 of the three great histories — the History of 

 Insects — was due to the fact that Ray edited it 

 in his old age. 



Ray was always a fine field naturalist, and 

 his catalogues of Cambridgeshire plants long 

 remained a classic. We may perhaps sum up 

 the contributions of this great naturalist in 

 the words of Professor Miall. "During his 

 long and strenuous life he introduced many 

 lasting improvements — fuller descriptions, 

 better definitions, better associations, better 

 sequences. He strove to rest his distinctions 

 upon knowledge of structure, which he person- 

 ally investigated at every opportunity . . . 

 His greatest single improvement was the divi- 



