SOME EARLY BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS. 297 



The catalogue of Birds, which was an imperfect one, 

 was omitted in subsequent editions, and Ray now com- 

 menced to engage himself on a far more important work, 

 the arrangement and publication of the notes and 

 observations about birds which had been left by 

 Willughby as his share of their undertaking in the study 

 of natural history. This posthumous work of Willughby 's 

 Ray published in Latin in 1676, under the title 

 " Ornithologia libri Tres," the English edition of the 

 same appearing in 1678. This, the well-known 

 " Ornithology of Francis Willughby," was edited by Ray 

 " with large editions." A facsimile of the title-page is 

 here given, the collation of the book being : 1 vol. folio ; 

 pp. 12. un n pp. 441. -4- pp. 6, Index. 2 plates of 

 fowling and LXXXVIII. of birds.* A catalogue of 

 English birds appears on pp. 21-28, some 190 species in 

 all being mentioned. How much original matter Ray 

 added to Willughby's labours it is impossible exactly to 

 determine, but it was evidently not inconsiderable, for 

 not only did he, as he tells us in his preface, add the 

 " descriptions and histories of those [birds] that were 

 wanting," these being principally those recently discovered 

 in the Indies and the New World, but he also added a 

 good deal of information which he received from certain 

 of his fellow-countrymen, notably from Sir Thomas 

 Browne, of Norwich, who " frankly communicated the 

 Drafts of several rare Birds, with some brief notes and 

 descriptions of them," and also from Mr. Jessop and Sir 

 Philip Skippon. His most important assistance, 

 however, came from Mr. Ralph Johnson, of Brignal, in 

 Yorkshire, who is described by Ray as "a person of 

 singular skill in Zoology, especially the History of Birds," 

 and who appears to have been not only an observer of 

 nature far in advance of his time, but also to have in- 



* The engravings which were executed at the expense of Mrs. 

 Wilkighby, are poor, and Ray laments that although he employed 

 good workmen the great distance he w^as from l,ondon necessitated 

 all direction:! and descriptions passing by lette", and observes that " in 

 many Sculps they have not satisfied me." 



