106 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



sometimes (thougli rarely) I take the liberty to feign a 

 name where I find not one. 



It is commonly reported with us of the Heron [Ardex 

 cinerea\ and Bittoun [Botaurus stellaris] , that they have 

 hut one wide gut, and therefore, they say, when they eat 

 an eel, she presently goes through them, which the heron 

 in her flight catches again and again ; but when I opened 

 them I found the story false, for they had guts like other 

 birds for anything I saw ; therefore I rather think the eel 

 (if at all) makes her escape out of her feet. 



BrignaU, Jan. 15, 167?. 



I have often taken notice that the simimer birds do 

 aU, or most of them, feed on such insects whose being 

 consists mostwhat in motion — I mean who have more 

 store of animal soul than of all the rest, and therefore 

 afford a plentiful supply of animal spirits to the brain, 

 and gc7U(s nervosum of the birds, which I sometimes 

 fancy to be the reason why these birds are so restless in 

 motion, and such continual singers ; and perhaps some 

 reason may be taken from hence why the Sows [^Oniscida], 

 and some other insects, are so beneficial to the nervous 

 kinds, and why a greater medicinal improvement may 

 be made of insects. 



Mr. OLDENBTJRGn to Ml". Ray. 



Sir, — My worthy neighbour, Mr. Hatton, giving me 

 a visit, acquainted me that my Lord Mordaunt hath at 

 his house at Parson's-green, near London, some of those 

 Barbadoes Turtles that are not bigger than larks, and 

 that his lordship is willing to permit any artist that shall 

 come to him in his, Mr. Hatton's, name to take a draught 

 of that bird. If, therefore, you are minded to have that 

 bird inserted in your History of Volatiles, it not being 

 hitherto described, as Mr. Hatton thinks, you may give 

 order to Mr. Martin to send some fit person to the place 



