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MEMORIALS OF RAY ; 



I am not ignorant that some do make the differences 

 of great and Httle singly, to be sufficient notes whereon 

 to ground a distinction of species. So in Parkinson and 

 Gerard's ' Herbals', we find many plants put down for 

 distinct species, which the authors themselves confess to 

 differ in no other point than in being in all parts less the 

 one than the other. Now though I grant there are 

 certain bounds and measures of littleness, and greatness, 

 which both plants and animals cannot exceed or fall 

 short of ; as for example, a sheep will never come to be 

 so big as an elephant, nor so little as a mouse ; nor a 

 gooseberry-bush so tall as an oak, or so low and small as 

 Adiantlmm aureum minus, when grown to its stature, be 

 it in what country you please ; yet is there a very great 

 latitude in this particular between many plants of the 

 same species, the difference of ten, nay twenty to one 

 being only in magnitude ; which difference is yet wholly 

 to be imputed either to the richness or poverty of the 

 soil, the moistness or drought of the season, the coldness 

 or heat of the climate, or some other accident ; which is 

 evident in that if you take the seed of the smallest and 

 poorest plant in its kind, provided it will admit culture, 

 and sow it in a rich soil well watered, you shall soon get 

 an offspring ten times as great as their mother plants. 

 Nay, take a root of a perennial, and removable plant, 

 from off a cold barren mountain, and plant it in a fat 

 warm garden, and it shall attain twice the stature or 

 dimensions it would have gotten had it remained in its 

 native place. The like is observed in animals, we having 

 here in England of sheep, from five to fifty pound a 

 score ; and of beasts, from three to twenty pound apiece. 

 This is all I have to say to the first question. 



The second question is, whether there have been, or 

 may be, any species lost or destroyed? To which I 

 answer, 1. That though it is absolutely and physically 

 possible, yet it is highly improbable, that any species 

 should be lost. 2. Though some species should be 



