132 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



Voltagio, &c. To be sure of tliis, the best way would 

 be to compare the plants together. 



6. I observed in the borders of some fields about 

 Leghorn a sort of trefoil, with a little spike of bright 

 purple or red flowers, which afterwards turned to spumose 

 vesicles, hke to the head of the strawberry trefoU. 

 Whether this be the Trifolimn folliculateum sive Vesica- 

 rium minus pur pur emn, J, B. ? \T. resupinatum, Linn.] 



7. Whether the Seseli pratense Monspeliensium be a 

 species distinct from our English Meadow Saxifrage ? To 

 me it seemed the same. [Both are, Silaus pratensis, Bess.] 



8. There is a sort of Jacea purpurea capitulo spinoso 

 growing on the sands a little beyond Naples, of which I 

 desu'e either the seed, or a plant dried, or so exact and 

 particular a description, as that I may know whether it 

 be abeady described or not. I saw at the house of John 

 Maria Ferro, an apothecary in Venice, hving near Santa 

 Maria Formosa, many rare dried plants, but especially a 

 great number of figures of plants, drawn exactly by a 

 curious hand, in black. If the said Signor Ferro be yet 

 living, please to visit him, and inquu'e of him whether he 

 designs to engrave and publish any of those icons, or 

 be willing to part with them for their worth to one that 

 will. 



Dr. Tankred Robinsos's Answer to Mr. Ray's Queries. 



Sir, — Li order to satisfy those queries which your 

 ciuriosity and goodness were pleased to bestow upon us, 

 we have been very industrious since our coming to Paris, 

 but could not meet with the Macreuse, it being now out 

 of season ; and the histories which the French here do 

 give of it are so very various, that a man knows not what 

 to conclude from them. They all say that it is originally 

 a fish (as some erroneously imagine our barnacles to be), 

 and therefore the convents, and most of the inhabitants 

 here, do generally eat it in Lent, and upon maigre days. 

 My friend Mr. Charlton, a very curious ancl worthy 



