MEMOIR OF RAY. 
31 
extended to various departments of the animal king- 
dom, particularly birds and fishes. In the summer 
of 1667 he traversed Cornwall, where he found 
many plants previously unknown to him, and made 
observations on the metals found in that county, and 
the mode of smelting them, which were afterwards 
published. When not occupied in this manner, he 
spent much of his time at Middleton-Park in War- 
wickshire, the seat of Mr Willughby. In a letter 
from that place to Dr Martin Lister, dated June 
1667, he thus describes his occupations: “ For my 
own part, I cannot boast of many discoveries made 
the last year, save of mine own errors. After I 
took my leave of you at Cambridge, I divided the re- 
mainder of the summer between Essex and Sussex, 
visiting several friends. My spare hours I bestow- 
ed in reading over such books of natural philosophy 
as came out since my being abroad, viz. Hook’s 
Micrographia, Mr Boyle’s Usefulness of Natural 
Philosophy, Sydenham on Fevers, the Philosophical 
Transactions, &c. The most part of the winter I 
spent in reviewing, and helping to put in order, Mr 
Willughby’s collection of birds, fishes, shells, stones, 
and other fossils; seeds, dried plants, coins, &c. ; 
in giving what assistance I could to Dr Wilkins, in 
framing his tables of plants, quadrupeds, birds, 
fishes, &c. for the use of the universal character ; 
in gathering up into a catalogue all such plants as 
I had found at any time growing wild in England, 
not in order to the present publishing of them, but 
