BOTANICAL INVESTIGATION IN MIDDLESEX. 879 





James Petiver, the best known of Eay's correspondents, was the son of 

 Mr, James Petiver, of Hillmorton near Rugby, and Mary his wife, and was 

 born between 1660 and 1670. He tells us that he had his 'juvenile edu- 

 cation at Rugby Free School,* in Warwickshire, under ye patronage of a 

 kind grandfather, Mr. Richard Elborowe ; since which ' he continues, ' I have 

 often bewailed my not being allowed, after that time, academical learning ' 

 (Sloane MSS. 3339, fol. 10, written in 1713). 



In course of time he was apprenticed to Mr. Feltham, apothecary to St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital, and commenced the study of medicine. The 

 earliest record of him in connection with botany is a small collection of 

 ' plants growing in the fields and gardens about London, gathered about 

 the year 1683 or 1684 ' in vol. clxxiv. of the Sloane Herbarium. 



At what time he first set up in practice on his own account does not 

 appear; but in 1692 we find him ' at the AVhite Cross, near Long Lane in 

 Aldersgate Street,' and in the same street, if not the same house, he con- 

 tinued to reside all his life. He was already recognised as a botanist of 

 some repute, and very intimate with Ray, who was indebted to him for 

 several notes in the second vol. of the Hidoria, published in 1688, and in 

 the Synopsis of 1690, acknowledged in the prefaces to those books. 

 Pulteney tells us, that in 1692 he made a tour through the Midland coun- 

 ties ; but it is evident that his profession rarely allowed him to go far from 

 town. 



His investigations about London, however, were so well known that in 

 Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia, published in 1695, the list of the 

 'more rare plants growing in Middlesex' (pp. 335-3i0) was written by 

 him, all the other county lists being contributed by Ray. That Petiver 

 was hurried in the matter appears from a letter to Mr. Scampton,t written 

 'July 4, 1695.' 'I had but one day & a halfe to compose ye Catalogue of 

 Middlesex, wch. if I might have had more time it should have been some- 

 wt. more perfect.' This was his first appearance as an author, and the list 

 is also interesting as the first for the whole county. It contains 108 plants 

 (including a few cryptogams), and Doody, Plukenet and Sloane are men- 

 tioned as contributors. 



In October of the same year, Petiver was made a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society, and in November he published the first ' century ' of the Museum 

 Pctivcrianum, a small octavo pamphlet, containing descriptions of 100 spe- 

 cimens of plants, animals and fossils, both British and foreign. Of this 

 work ten centuries were printed, the last in January 1703. 



There is a list of new plants, &c., by Petiver, in the appendix to the 

 second edition of the Synopsis in 1696. These are chiefly among the 

 mosses and allied plants. That the notes are not more extensive is 

 owing to the fact that during this year he was devoted to the study of 

 insects. 



At this time Petiver was in a good practice, and was also apothecary to 



* He entered the school in 1676 (Rugby School Register, p. 1). 

 t Sloane MSS. 'iWi, fol. 129. 



