410 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



Mr. Eay to Dr. Hans Sloane. 



Black Notley, .... 170'2. 



Sir, — I understand by Mr. Dale, not long since 

 returned from London, that it is the opinion of my 

 friends there, excepting yourself, that the design of pro- 

 curing figures for my History of Plants is impossible 

 to be effected for want of gravers, but especially super- 

 visors. For my part, as I did not first set it on foot, so 

 am I well contented that it be laid aside. 



I suppose you hold some correspondence with Dr. 

 Preston, whom, when you write to, I pray be pleased to 

 tell him that my ' Methodus Plantarum aucta et emeu- 

 data ' is now published, and that I have a copy of it at 

 his service, if I knew how to convey it to him, though I 

 fear the charge of carriage would be more than the book 

 is worth. 



Mr. Dale tells me that some of my friends at London 

 talk of imposing a new task upon me, that is, of describ- 

 ing such exotic insects as are found in the museums of 

 the virtuosi about London, which, if there be no more 

 able and better qualified person living in or near the city 

 for such an undertaking, I should not be much averse 

 from, if it please God to continue me any tolerable 

 measure of health and ease, for that I may do sitting, 

 and without much motion. But then they must be sent 

 down to me by parcels. As for our English insects, I 

 think I may, without vanity, say, that I have taken more 

 pains about some tribes of them than any Englishman 

 before me. If I were to publish a history of insects, in 

 each tribe I would first place the English ones by them- 

 selves, and then the exotics. 



I have by me a history of our diurnal English Papilios 

 of my own knowledge, which I drew up some years since. 

 They are in number about forty. I understand that Mr. 

 Petiver hath several new ones sent him out of Cornwall, 



