When this pious writer died, his papers were intrusted to his friend Dr Derham, who, having arranged and selected such as seemed of most importance, published a part of them in 1718, under the name of Philosophical Letters between the late learned Mr Ray and several of his ingenious Correspondents, natives and foreigners, to which are added those of Francis Willughby, Esq. The same person, as has been already mentioned, also edited the Synopsis of Birds and Fishes, and prepared for publication his posthumous work on Insects. He moreover got ready for the press his Travels in England, Wales, and Scotland, to which he intended to prefix an account of the author; but, although the life was written, the book did not make its appearance until a later period, when, as has been noted above, it came forth under the direction of Mr George Scott, bearing the title of the Select Remains of the learned John Ray. The principal authorities for his life and writings are, the Select Remains just mentioned; Dr Pulteney's Sketches of the Progress of Botany; the article Ray, in Rees' Cyclopaedia, by Sir James Edward Smith; and that by Cuvier and Du Petit-Thouars, in the Biographie Universelle. In the two latter, his botanical and zoological labours are carefully recorded; and from the former we learn, in conclusion, that "his handwriting was peculiarly fair and elegant;" which has been the case with few of the more distinguished naturalists. His portraits are not numerous, but there is one in oil, taken at an advanced period of his life, remaining in the British Museum; a miniature, in the possession of Dr John Sims, having been engraved in the first volume of the Annals of Botany, published in 1805; and two prints, the one by Elder, the other by Vertue, from a picture by Faithorne, being prefixed to the third edition of the Synopsis, and to the Historia Plantarum. We may add that, in the fifteenth number of the Gallery of Portraits, published under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, is a beautiful engraving by Meyer of the painting in the British Museum. In the likeness of Ray the phrenologist will look in vain for indications of those intellectual faculties which are displayed in his writings. The forehead is contracted in all its dimensions; so as to form a direct contrast to that of Cuvier, another naturalist of equal industry and zeal, but perhaps of not more comprehensive mind. FOOTNOTES: [I] Biographic Universelle, art. Ray, tome xxxvii. p. 161. REAUMUR. _Account of the Life and Writings of Reaumur._ Birth and Education of Reaumur--He settles at Paris, where he is introduced to the Scientific World by the President Henault, and becomes a Member of the Academy of Sciences--His Labours for the Improvement of the Arts--His Works on Natural History, of which the Memoirs on Insects are the most important--His Occupations and Mode of Life.