114 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



Mr. Oldexbttegh to Mr. Kay. 



Sir, — Your accurate discourse touching the Seeds^ and 

 the specific difference of Plants, was read before the 

 Royal Society on Thursday last, and was so well received, 

 that the President, in the name of the whole body, returns 

 you their hearty thanks for so good an entertainment. 

 They doubt not but that you w^ill in good time commu- 

 nicate to them also what you shall farther observe con- 

 cerning the seeds of bulbous plants, and the positive 

 specific difference of plants ; and they wish you much 

 health and good success for performing what you intend 

 in reference to the history of animals : wherein, if I could 

 contribute anything, I would do it with great joy. I 

 received lately from Hamborough a German description 

 of that countiy in Africa, called Fetu (of which I have 

 given some account in the last 'Transactions' of No- 

 vember), and found in the book bound some loose cuts 

 which I see not that they belong to that book ; amongst 

 them were these three here inclosed, which I thought fit 

 to send you, that you might see whether you have aU the 

 birds therein expressed, and whether you know the plants 

 that are in one of them. That cut which is marked 1, 

 seems to represent the Anas arcticd Clusii [the Puffin], 

 the eye only is different, if I mistake not. You may, 

 when you have done with them, return them to me in a 

 paper to Mr. Martin, to whom I spoke lately that I had 

 gotten permission to have a draught taken of the East 

 Indian pigeons, and the other birds, brought from those 

 parts by Captain Erin, now living on Tower-hill, if it 

 were worth while. But he teUs me, that since we cannot 

 have their names and peculiarities, it wiU be improper to 

 insert them into your Ornithology. AU that I could learn 

 of the pigeons was, that they were Sliratta pigeons, 

 sprightly, and with extraordinary broad tails, which they 

 spread out almost peacock-like. And as to the other 

 birds, no more can be said of them, than what fine shape 



