[ 8 °+ ] 
permit him to fubfcribe his name thereto, a feries of 
very curious and ufeful obfervations upon the vege- 
table poifons growing in England j the knowlege 
of which cannot be too much or too generally in- 
culcated. 
The plants in the work, now put into your lord- 
fhip’s hands, are difpofed according to the fexual 
fyflem of Dr. Linnaeus, a very worthy member of 
this Society : but our author has not contented him- 
felf with a fimple arrangement of the plants, the 
fubjedl of his work ; he has gone further, and has 
given us not only the fynonymes of fome of the bed: 
authors, but as far as his reading and obfervations 
have enabled him, their medical and oeconomical 
ufes and their places of growth. 
Nothing ca,i more tend to the advancement of the 
natural hilfory of this kingdom, than that perfons 
converfunt in the various parts of it, (heuld colledfc 
the productions of their own neighbourhood, and 
tranfmit accounts thereof to the Royal Society. 
How much correfpondence of this kind has already 
done, nothing can give a (Longer teftimony than the 
Synoplis Stirpium Britannicarnm of the late Mr. 
Ray j as this, joined to his own indudry, enabled Mr. 
Ray to communicate to the public a more perfedt 
account of the plants of this country than any other 
nation has yet feen. 
I (hall make no apology for troubling your lord- 
fbip with this, as I am well apprifed how lure every 
performance is to .meet with your lordlhip’s patro- 
nage, which tends to promote the ends of the indi- 
tution of that Society, over which you fo very wor- 
thily prefide. 
] have 
