! 5 2 
A EULOGY OF RAY, DALE AND ALLEN. 
Professor Alfred Newton, “ the foundation of scientific ornitho¬ 
logy.,” and it is impossible to separate in it the work of Willughby 
from that of Ray. “ From the affectionate care with which 
Ray has cherished the fame of his departed friend, we are in 
danger,” says Sir James Edward Smith, “ of attributing too much 
to Willughby and too little to himself.” The classification of 
birds by their claws and beaks was the first serious attempt of 
the kind since the days of Aristotle. It was adopted, in the main, 
by Linnaeus, and can hardly be said to be superseded even to-day. 
Two years later, Ray published an enlarged edition of the work 
in English. 
On the death of Willughby’s mother, in 1676, Ray’s pupils 
were taken from him ; and, after a year’s residence at Sutton 
Coldfield, he returned to his native county, living for two years 
at Falkbourne Hall, near Witham, probably as tutor to the son 
of the owner, Mr. Edward Bullock. Possibly, as tradition has 
it, the fine cedar alongside the Hall may have been planted at 
this time by Ray. 
In March 1670, Ray’s mother, Elizabeth Ray, died at the 
Dewlands, the pretty little home that he had built for her at 
Black Notley : thither he himself moved in the following June; 
and there he spent the remainder of his days, the twenty-five 
most productive years of all. We must all deplore the 
destruction by fire of this sacred shrine of English science, 
since last the Essex Field Club visited Black Notley ! 
Not till 1682 have we any other work from Ray’s pen ; but 
the MefhcduaPlaniarnm Nova of that year, an elaboration of the 
tables prepared for Wilkins fourteen years before, is not only one 
of the corner stones of his philosophical fame, but is also a land¬ 
mark in the history of systematic botany. In it he describes 
the true nature of buds, speaking of them as annual plants 
springing from the old stock, recognises the division of flowering 
plants into Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons, and indicates 
many of the principal Natural Orders of which we now make use. 
He bases his system mainly, it is true, upon the fruit ; but also 
upon characters derived from flower-and leaf. As he always 
does, Ray fully acknowledges his indebtedness to his predecessors, 
to Csesalpinus, a century before, whom he styles “ the parent of 
system,” and to his acute but less generous contemporary, Robert 
Morison, of Oxford ; but the system here sketched out. though 
