[Illustration] RAY. John Ray, whom Haller describes as the greatest botanist in the memory of man, and whose writings on animals are pronounced by Cuvier to be the foundation of all modern zoology, was born on the 29th of November, 1628, at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex. His father was a blacksmith, who availed himself of the advantages of a free grammar school at Black Notley to bestow upon his son a liberal education. John was designed for holy orders; and was accordingly entered at Catherine Hall, Cambridge, in his sixteenth year. He subsequently removed to Trinity, of which college he was elected a Fellow, in the same year with the celebrated Isaac Barrow. In 1651 he was appointed Greek Lecturer of his college; and afterwards Mathematical Lecturer and Humanity Reader. In the midst of his professional occupations Ray appears to have devoted himself to that course of observation of the works of nature, which was afterwards to constitute the business and pleasure of his life, and upon which his enduring reputation was to be built. In 1660 he published his ‘Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium,’ which work he states to be the result of ten years of research. He must, therefore, have become a naturalist in the best sense of the word—he must have observed as well as read—at the period when he was struggling for university honours, and obtaining them in company with some of the most eminent persons of his own day. Before the publication of his catalogue, he had visited many parts of England and Wales, for the purpose chiefly of collecting their native plants; and his Itineraries, which were first published in 1760, under the title off ‘Select Remains of the learned John Ray,’ show that he was a careful and diligent observer of every matter that could enlarge his understanding and correct his taste. His principal companion in his favourite studies was his friend and pupil, Francis Willughby. [Illustration: _Engraved by H. Meyer._ RAY. _From an original Picture in the British Museum._ Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._ ]