Notice of British Naturalists. 225 



part of Ray's character, his admiration for friendship, and his 

 cherishing of his friends. We never find him alone. Is he wri- 

 ting a book ? Some friend assists hini in collecting the details. 

 Is he making a tour to increase his stock of knowledge ? Some 

 brother in feeling is his constant companion. Is he engaged in 

 editing the works of another ? He is performing the last melan- 

 choly duty for one who never forsook him, either in prosperity 

 or adversity. 



This work may be said to be the beginning (of any importance) 

 of the publication of local floi^as ; a branch of literature which 

 has been of late so successfully cultivated ; and which has had 

 more effect in ascertaining and fixing this part of the natural his- 

 tory of Great Britain, than even the writings of more scientific 

 and learned authors. And it is greatly to be desired that it were 

 more thoroughly prosecuted than it has hitherto been, in this our 

 own land. Not only do we want such accounts of plants, but 

 likewise of all the different departments of nature. From such 

 sources the great and commanding writers draw their informa- 

 tion ; and if these minor springs run dry, we cannot possibly ex- 

 pect any truly important results. It was in this way that the 

 great Cuvier himself began, when engaged in his investiga- 

 tions of the inferior animals, while a tutor in Normandy ; and 

 he owed not a little to it in after life. Each district has its own 

 peculiarities which are easily observed by those who live there ; 

 and thus to collect information will ever be found a labor which 

 is fully repaid by the pleasure which accrues from it. To make 

 it public may cost more pains ; but magazines and journals are 

 always ready to notice any important fact or observation. Pre- 

 vious to this time botany had been much neglected over the 

 whole of England ; but this publication of Ray gave it a new 

 spring, and set up a model of what might be effected by others. 

 In Ray's own words, " many were prompted to those studies, and 

 to mind the plants they met with in their walks in the fields." 

 He had now hit upon a path along which his genius pointed, and 

 for the following of which his peculiar talents fitted him. Hav- 

 ing once begun, he eagerly pursued his researches ; and not con- 

 tent with what he met with in the neighborhood of Cambridge, 

 he extended his investigations throughout the greatest part of 

 England and Wales, and the south of Scotland. In these tours, 

 for he was only absent at intervals, he was generally accompa- 



Vol. XXXVI, No. 2.— April-July, 1839. 29 



