He now finished his Methodus Plantarum Nova, which was published in 1682; and laboured at his Historia Plantarum Generalis, of which the first volume appeared in 1686, the second in the following year, and the third in 1704. In compiling this great work, he received much valuable assistance from his friends, but more especially from Sir Hans Sloane and Dr Tancred Robinson. With respect to the former of these publications, it may be stated, that it was founded upon the labours of his predecessors, such as Caesalpinus and Jungius, as well as on the writings of Morison, whose method he principally followed. He divided plants into woody and herbaceous. The woody kinds he again divided into trees and shrubs, distinguishing the trees by their possessing buds; which he showed to be, in fact, new plants annually springing from the old ones. The families were better defined, the classes characterized with more precision, and various terms introduced which were of great advantage as tending to render the language of botany more appropriate. The General History of Plants is his most celebrated work on the vegetable kingdom. In it he describes with considerable exactness and perspicuity all the species which his predecessors had made known, adding those that had been discovered in his own time. All botanists who have spoken of this work agree in considering it as one of immense labour, although, as the greater part was avowedly borrowed from other writers, it has not the advantage of ranking among those that have resulted from original observation. About the same time he revised and arranged Mr Willughby's papers relative to fishes, which, being put in order for the press, and communicated by Dr Robinson to the Royal Society, were published at the charge of that learned body; the engravings having been executed at the expense of several of the members. This important treatise appeared in 1686. Besides all the species of Belon, Rondelet, Gesner, Aldrovandi, Olina, and Margrave, says an eminent ichthyological writer, there are in these works a great number which Willughby and Ray had observed in Germany and Italy. The fishes of the Mediterranean in particular are described with great accuracy, and it is often easier to trace them in their volumes than in Linnaeus. To these two works are appended numerous figures, most of which are only copies, although there are some very good original ones among them. Even such of them as are borrowed from Belon and Rondelet acquire an interest from the descriptions which accompany them, and which are much superior to those of the French writers.[I]