362 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAT. 



see how I can be any way instrumental or subservient 

 thereto. 



I thank you for your account of the tiger's combat 

 with the dogs. That creature was very rarely seen at 

 Rome itself. I wonder how they got it here. Surely it 

 is no true Asiatic tiger, but an American. I take leave 

 and rest, Sir, 



Your much obliged and affectionate 



friend and servant, 



John Ray. 



For his liououred friend, Dr. Hans Sloane, 

 at his house at the corner of Southampton street, 

 towards Bloomsbury square, London. 



Mr. Ray to Dr. Hajss Sloane. 



B. N., March 22, — 9|. 

 Sir, — The parcel you sent last week I received on 

 Satm'day, which, when I had opened, I was very much 

 taken with the beauty of the dried plants, indeed I 

 cannot say that ever I saw the like spectacle ; such large 

 and fair samples of rare and nondescript plants, so 

 curiously and exactly extended and preserved, and so 

 many of them ; and could not but wish that they might 

 be drawn, engraven, and published. But, alas ! I find, as 

 I told you, that I can make but poor work with them ; 

 the fruit or seed scarce to be seen, at least perfectly 

 discerned, in any of them ; neither the colour or figure of 

 the flower, without marring the specimens, which it were 

 a great pity to do ; the statm'e to be known but in few, 

 and nothing of the root. Those that gathered them 

 might easily have given an account of all these, as also of 

 the place where they were found. For my part, I am 

 loth my work should want such an ornament, yet am I 

 afraid to meddle with them, having not been conversant 

 among dried plants, especially Indian and American. I 

 am at a loss what to do in this case, and want your 

 advice. I was in hopes that both the collectors and 



