SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 221 
perhaps, the fullest of the Itineraries, it may not be amiss to 
indicate, on a map, the actual course taken. 
Ray and Willughby’s Journey through Europe in 1663-4. 
—Instead of following Ray in his fourth and fifth Itineraries 
(when, searching for new plants and birds, he visited Cornwall 
with Willughby in 1667, and after that again turned his 
face northwards in 1671 to Northumberland in the company 
of Willisel, a botanist) it will be pleasant and more profitable 
to accompany him abroad. Having, after due deliberation, 
conceived the bold idea of attempting a systematic description 
of the whole animal kingdom, the two naturalists, Ray 
and Willughby (of whom one at least was already a master 
in science), crossed to Calais on April 18th, 1663, bent on 
exploring western Europe. They had with them Nathaniel 
Bacon, afterwards a lawyer of distinction, and Philip Skippon, 
heir to a Suffolk knighthood, but at present Ray’s pupil. 
The intention of the party was to visit Holland, Germany, 
Switzerland, Italy and France, which they did; but war 
breaking out they had to hurry back from France on the 
return journey, escaping at short notice with the loss of 
valuable journals. Ray’s account of the expedition is to be 
found in his “Travels Through the Low-Countries, Germany, 
Italy and France,” a book somewhat disappointing to the 
zoologist.* 
Striking northwards from Calais, by way of Dunkirk 
and Ostend, they proceeded to Holland, and visited Delft, 
of more importance then than it is now. Here one Jean 
vander Mere kept a museum, where, among other “ natural 
rarities,” was a Soland Goose, said—most likely in error— 
to have come from Greenland. 
From Delft} their route took them to Leyden in a canal 
boat drawn by horses, where they noted the grave of Carolus 
Clusius (L’Escluse) the famous botanist. From Leyden about 
the Ist of June, a by-journey in the direction of Rotterdam 
finds them at a village called Sevenhuys,{ for the purpose of 
seeing a grand congregation of Spoonbills, Night Herons, 
* First edition, 1673; second edn., 1738. 
t ‘‘ Travels,” p. 24. 
+t Zevenhuizen, see a map illustrating the past distribution of the 
Spoonbill (‘‘ Norwich Naturalists’ Trans.,” Vol, V., p, 166), 
