.514 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ December 14, 1876. 



called the Red Bilberry, Whortleberry, and Cowberry. He 

 visited the garden of Dr. Johnson at Pontefraet, and records 

 that he Dever before saw Solidago Sarracenica, Scrophularia 

 Tradtecanti, and some others. Crossing into Scotland Ray 

 notices in the garden of Mr. Stuart at Stirling " divers exotick 

 plants, more than one would hope to find in to northerly and 

 cold a country." Some Ray had not before seen. One sen- 

 tence appears to record the first finding in Wales of the Maiden- 

 hair Fern, for at St. David's Head he says he found "the 

 plant I call Polypodium marinum growing on many of the rocks 

 by the seaside, which it is likely the herbarists may call Filix 

 marina or Adiantkum." Ramsey Island, he observes, was so 

 called from the Ramsons (Allium ursinum) plentifully growing 

 there. The names of the plants not natives of England which 

 he published in his " Travels through the Low Countries " are 

 only alphabetically arranged, with brief descriptions and the 

 placeB where he observed them. The particulars are in Latin, 

 and a translation of one will show the character of the work. 

 " Papaver corniculatum {Horned Poppy) with crimson flower. 

 In Attica, in the neighbourhood of Hymettus." This is from 

 his " Stirpium orientalium rariorum Catalogus." 



In his subsequent journeys he was commonly accompanied 

 by some friends of a congenial taste; thus, ia his second tour 

 in the autumn of 1661 Mr. Willnghby and some other gentle- 

 men travelled with Mr. Ray into Scotland through the coun- 

 ties of Durham and Northumberland to Edinburgh, Glasgow, 

 and back through Cumberland and Westmorland. This journey 

 held six weeks, from July 26 th to August 30th. In 1662 Mr. 

 Ray, accompanied by Mr. Willnghby, took his third and 

 most extensive English tour through the middle counties of 

 England into Cheshire, thence into North Wales, and through 

 the middle Welsh counties into Pembrokeshire, coasting the 

 southern part to Bath and Bristol, thence to the Land's End 

 through Somerset and Devon, returning through Dorsetshire, 

 Wiltshire, and Hampshire. They were absent in this excursion 

 from May 8th to July 18th, and Mr. Ray gathered a plentiful 

 harvest, which afterwards enabled him to enrich his general 

 " Catalogue of Eoglish Plants," then in meditation. Nor did 

 he omit to avail himself of every opportunity, particularly at 

 Tenby in Wales, and in Cornwall, of describing such birds 

 and fishes as were less frequent in other parts, preparatory to 

 his intended publications in zoology. 



In 1663 he published an appendix to the " Cambridge Cata- 

 logue," containing emendations and the addition of forty-two 

 plants ; and in 1685 came out another appendix, with the 

 addition of sixty more not noticed before, which were princi- 

 pally communicated by Mr. Dent of Cambridge. 



Being now at liberty from the constraints and business of a 

 college life, he was led to accompany Mr. Willnghby, Mr. 

 Skippon, and Mr. Nathaniel Bacon, two of them his pupils, to 

 the Continent. Mr. Ray was absent from April 18th, 1663, to 

 March 1665-6, during which time they visited France, Holland, 

 Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and extended their journey to 

 Sicily and to Malta. 



On his return from the Continent he spent the summer of 

 1666 between his friends in Essex and Sussex, and in reading 

 the publications which had appeared in England during the 

 three years of his absence. The winter passed in reviewing 

 and arranging the museum of his friend and pupil, Mr. 

 Willnghby, rich in animal and fossil productions, in arranging 

 his own catalogues for his general list of English vegetables, 

 and in framing the tables for Dr. WilkinB's "Real or Universal 

 Character." 



In the summer of 1667 Mr. Ray, accompanied by his much- 

 honoured friend Mr. Willnghby, made his fourth excursion 

 into the distant counties. Th6y left Middleton Park on 

 June 25th, and took their route to the Land's End through 

 the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Somerset, and 

 returned through Hants to London on September 13th. 



On November 7th of this year he was chosen Fellow of the 

 Royal Society, and was prevailed on by Bishop Wilkins to 

 translate his "Real Character" into Latin. This he per- 

 formed, though it was never published, and the manuscript is 

 extant in the library of the Royal Society. The latter end of 

 the year and the beginning of 1668 he spent with gentlemen 

 who had all been his pupils at Trinity : Mr. Burrell and Mr. 

 Conrthorpe at Danny, in Sussex; Sir Robert Barnham at 

 Bocton, in Kent; and with Mr. Willnghby, in Warwickshire. 

 In the autumn of this year he took his fifth journey alone 

 into Yorkshire and Westmorland, returning in September to 

 Middleton Hall, and spent the winter with Mr. Willnghby, 

 then lately married. 



About this time Dr. Tonge, Dr. Beal, and some other philo- 

 sophical gentlemen in England, were busied in experiments 

 relating to the motion of the eap in trees. Among these also 

 in the spring of 1669 Mr. Ray and Mr. Willnghby entered upon 

 a set of the like experiments, and induced Mr. (afterwards Dr.) 

 Lister to prosecute the same. These exceriments were made 

 on the Birch, the Sycamore or Greater Maple, the Alder, the 

 Ash, the Hazel, Chestnut, Walnut, and Willow, of which the 

 two first were found to be the best adapted to the purpose 

 from their bleeding most freely. 



In 1671 Mr. Ray wrote a paper, printed in the "Philosophical 

 Transactions," No. 7-1, on the subject of spontaneous genera- 

 tion, a point of philosophy which had been much discussed, 

 and to which some among the learned were yet attached. It 

 appears from this paper that he very early rejected this 

 doctrine, and was confirmed in his opinion by the experiments 

 of Redi. In this year he drew up his " Catalogue," and dedicated 

 it to his friend and Maecenas Mr. Willnghby under the follow- 

 ing title, " Catalogus Plantarum Anglian et insularum adjaeen- 

 tium turn indigenes turn in agris passim cultas complectens." 



In this year he informs Dr. Lister that he had what he 

 thought a most liberal offer of £100 a-year and all his expenses 

 defrayed to accompany three young gentlemen abroad. But 

 he declined it, although he much wished to have taken a 

 review of the alpine plants. Indisposition had some share in 

 this refusal, and we find that in the next Epring, 1671, he 

 suffered much from a jaundice. He was so far recovered, bow- 

 ever, before July as to be able to set forth on his sixth journey, 

 in which he took with him Thomas Willisel, an unlettered 

 man, but one whose love for plants, and his zeal and assiduity 

 in collecting them, merits commemoration. They travelled 

 through Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and all the northern counties, 

 as far as to Berwick, and back through the bishopric of 

 Durham. 



In the same year died, to the unspeakable loss and grief of 

 Mr. Ray, his most valuable friend Francis Willnghby, Esq., on 

 July 3rd, in tbe thirty-seventh year of his age. The strictest 

 intimacy had subsisted between them from the time of their 

 being fellow collegians, and it was cemented by a congenial My 

 of taste, which not unfrequently forms a stronger bond of 

 union than the ties of blood. 



For the use of his pupils (Mr. Willughby's two sons) Mr. 

 Ray drew up in 1672 his "Nomenclator Classicus," induced 

 thereto by observing th.9 multitude of errors in the names of 

 plants and animals in the manuals of daily use. 



On November 19th, 1672, he sustained in the death of 

 Bishop Wilkins the loss of another of his best friends, and it 

 is not unreasonable to conjecture that these privations added 

 strength to his motives for domestic retirement, and accele- 

 rated at least that connection he made the next year, when he 

 married Margaret, the daughter of Mr. John Oakely of Laun- 

 ton in Oxfordshire. They were married in the church of 

 Middleton on June 5th, 1673. 



In the same year Mr. Ray gave to the public the fruit of his 

 foreign travels under the title of "Observations Topographical. 

 Moral, and Physiological, made in a Journey through part of 

 the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France." To the end 

 of these " Observations" is affixed an alphabetical list of the 

 plants mentioned in the body of the book, under the title of 

 " Catalogus Stirpium in exteris regionibus, a nobis observata- 

 rum, qua? vel omnino vel parce admodum in Angliu rponte 

 proveniunt." 



Mr. Ray continued after his marriage to reside at Middleton 

 Hall, where his engagements at this period of his life were 

 such as colled forth all the talents of his literary abilities and 

 demanded all his care as a faithful guardian. He was em- 

 ployed in a double duty, that of his tmst to the sons of bio 

 late estimable friend and of editor to the remains of their 

 father, " On the History of Birds and Fishes." Mr. Ray 

 translated this work into English, and published it with large 

 additions in 1678, with figures engraved at the expense of Mrs. 

 Willnghby. 



Mr. Ray in" the year 1674 was induced to engage, at tbe 

 request of the Royal Society, with other distant members, to 

 furnish observations on the subjects of natural history, to be 

 read at their meetings; the Society, notwithstanding the 

 extreme diligence of the Secretary and some few others, being 

 at this juncture rather in a languishing state. 



On this occasion he wrote several papers, of which some 

 were afterwards printed in the "Philosophical Transactions." 

 Amnrg those which were not published, as we rind by his 

 letttie, were the following: "On the Acid of Ants;" " On a 



