Letter 0386

Ray returns Sloane’s box ‘containing the Papers of fishes & Mr Sherards dried plants’. He has enclosed a letter from Mr Sherard, another for Mr Smith the bookseller, and some of his observations on ‘ye species of Fishes’ described in Sloane’s papers. Ray marvels at Sloane’s ability to collect so many plant and animal specimens with descriptions so quickly. He would include Sloane’s information in his Synopsis, but the publishing of the book has been delayed already and he does not want to confuse the publishers with further references. Ray was a theologian and naturalist who collected and catalogued his botanical findings in the much lauded Historia plantarum (1686, 1688) (Scott Mandelbrote, Ray , John (16271705), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23203, accessed 18 June 2013]).