Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ray, John
RAY, JOHN (1627–1705), naturalist, was born at Black Notley, near Braintree, Essex, probably on 29 Nov. 1627. He was baptised on 29 June 1628, and in a letter dated 30 June 1702 (Correspondence, p. 401) he speaks of himself as ‘now almost three-score and fifteen.’ His father, Roger Ray, was a blacksmith. Until 1670 he himself spelt his name Wray; but he then dropped the initial W, on the ground apparently that it was not possible to latinise it (ib. p. 65). An unsubstantiated tradition connects the great naturalist with the family of Reay of Gill House, Bromfield, Cumberland (Hutchinson, History of Cumberland; Gent. Mag. 1794, i. 420; Essex Naturalist, iii. 296, iv. 119). Ray was educated first at Braintree grammar school, whence he entered Catharine Hall, Cambridge (28 June 1644), at the cost of a Squire Wyvill (Cottage Gardener, v. 221); a year later Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) [q. v.] left the neighbouring grammar school of Felsted for Trinity College. In 1646 Ray migrated from Catharine Hall to Trinity College, coming under the tuition of Dr. Duport, who preceded Barrow as regius professor of Greek. In 1647 he graduated B.A., and in 1649 was elected to a minor fellowship at the same time as Barrow. He proceeded M.A. and was appointed Greek lecturer in 1651, mathematical lecturer in 1653, humanity reader in 1655, prælector in 1657, junior dean in 1658, and college steward in 1659 and 1660.
Derham speaks of him (Select Remains) at this time as a good Hebrew scholar, an eminent tutor, and, according to Archbishop Tenison, celebrated as a preacher of ‘solid and useful divinity.’ But he was not at the time in holy orders. Ray's ‘Wisdom of God in the Creation,’ first published in 1691, and his ‘Discourses concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World’ (1692), were college exercises or ‘commonplaces,’ and his funeral sermons on Dr. Arrowsmith, master of Trinity, who died in 1658, and on John Nid, senior fellow, who collaborated with him in his first work and who died about 1659, were also preached before his ordination.
In August and September 1658 Ray made the first of his botanical tours of which we possess the itineraries, riding through the Midland counties and North Wales. In 1660 he published his first work, the ‘Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium,’ a duodecimo of 285 pages, enumerating 626 species in alphabetical order, with a careful synonymy, notes on uses and structure, and descriptions of new species. It was the first local catalogue of the plants of a district which had been issued in England.
On 23 Dec. 1660 Ray was ordained deacon and priest by Robert Sanderson [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, in the Barbican Chapel. In July and August 1661, in company with his pupil, Philip (afterwards Sir Philip) Skippon, Ray made a second botanical journey, going through Northumberland into the south of Scotland, and returning through Cumberland. Between May and July 1662, in company with another pupil, Francis Willughby [q. v.], he again traversed the Midlands and North Wales, returning through South Wales, Devon, Cornwall, and the south-western counties. Although his theological views in the main harmonised with those of the church establishment under Charles II, Ray, with thirteen other fellows of colleges, resigned his fellowship (24 Aug. 1662), rather than subscribe in accordance with the ‘Bartholomew Act’ of 1662. Though he considered the covenant an unlawful oath, he declined to declare that it was not binding on those who had taken it. Till his death he remained in lay communion with the established church.
In 1662 Ray and Willughby agreed to attempt a systematic description of the whole organic world, Willughby undertaking the animals and Ray the plants. In fulfilment of this scheme, Ray, Willughby, Skippon, and another pupil, Nathaniel Bacon, left Dover in April 1663, and spent three years abroad, visiting Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, and Malta. Although mainly interested in natural history, Ray, on this as on all his journeys, carefully recorded antiquities, local customs, and institutions. On the return journey Willughby parted from them at Montpellier, and visited Spain. Their joint continental ‘Observations’ were not published until 1673.
The winter of 1666–7 Ray devoted partly to the arrangement of Willughby's collections at Middleton Hall, Warwickshire, and partly to drawing up systematic tables of plants and animals for Dr. John Wilkins's ‘Essay towards a Real Character.’ These tables are interesting as the first sketch of the whole of his systematic work. Shortly afterwards Ray, at the request of Wilkins, translated the latter's ‘Essay’ into Latin, but the translation was never published, and, though long preserved by the Royal Society, is now lost. In the summer of 1667 Ray and Willughby made another journey into Cornwall, making notes on the mines and smelting works as well as on the plants and animals; and, having returned through Hampshire to London, Ray was persuaded to become a fellow of the Royal Society, and was admitted 7 Nov. 1667.
Willughby married a little later, and Ray made his summer journey in 1668 alone, visiting Yorkshire and Westmoreland, but returning to Middleton Hall for the following winter and spring. The two friends then began a series of experiments on the motion of the sap in trees, which were partly described in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for 1669, but were continued for some years later.
In 1670 Ray published anonymously the first edition of his ‘Collection of English Proverbs,’ and also his ‘Catalogus Plantarum Angliæ,’ which, though only alphabetical in its arrangement, and confined to flowering plants, far surpassed in accuracy Merrett's ‘Pinax,’ its chief predecessor. In the same year he declined, owing to poor health, an offer to travel abroad with three young noblemen; but in 1671 he made a tour into the northern counties, taking Thomas Willisel [q. v.] with him as an assistant in collecting.
The death of Francis Willughby, 3 July 1672, made a great change in Ray's life. He was left an annuity of 60l., which seems to have been his main income for the rest of his career. The education of Willughby's two sons occupied much of his time during the next four years, while the editing of his friend's unfinished zoological works formed one of his chief labours for his last twenty-seven years. Having taken up his residence at Middleton Hall, he married, in 1673, Margaret Oakeley, a member of the household, who assisted him in teaching the children. His account of his foreign travels published in the same year, ‘with a catalogue of plants not native of England,’ contained also a narrative of Willughby's journey through Spain; and the first edition of his ‘Collection of English Words not generally used,’ a valuable glossary of northern and southern dialect (1674), contained ‘Catalogues of English Birds and Fishes, and an account of the … refining such metals … as are gotten in England,’ which were also partly Willughby's work. Besides the preparation for his young pupils of a ‘Nomenclator Classicus’ or ‘Dictionariolum Trilingue’ in English, Latin, and Greek, which was first published in 1675, Ray completed Willughby's Latin notes on birds, which he published in 1676 as ‘Francisci Willughbeii Ornithologia,’ illustrated with copperplates engraved at the expense of Mrs. Willughby. Ray then translated the work into English, in which language it was issued, ‘with many additions throughout,’ in 1678. With regard to this and subsequent works Sir James Edward Smith truly observes that ‘from the affectionate care with which Ray has cherished the fame of his departed friend, we are in danger of attributing too much to Willughby and too little to himself.’
On the death of Lady Cassandra Willughby, the mother of his friend, in 1676, Ray's pupils were taken from his care. He removed to Sutton Coldfield, about four miles from Middleton, and thence, at Michaelmas 1677, to Falkbourne Hall, near Witham, Essex, then the residence of Edward Bullock, to whose son he probably acted as tutor. In March 1679 Ray's mother, Elizabeth Ray, died at the Dewlands, a house which he had built for her, at Black Notley, to which he moved in the following June, and in which he lived for the remainder of his life.
In 1682 Ray published his first independent systematic work on plants, the ‘Methodus Plantarum Nova,’ an elaboration of the tables prepared for Wilkins fourteen years before. In this he first showed the true nature of buds, and employed the division of flowering plants into dicotyledons and monocotyledons. He recognised his indebtedness to Cæsalpinus and to Robert Morison [q. v.]; but, by basing his system mainly upon the fruit and also in part upon the flower, the leaf and other characteristics, he both indicated many of the natural orders now employed by botanists and made practically the first decided step towards a natural system of classification. Unfortunately he retained the primary division of plants into herbs, shrubs, and trees, and denied the existence of buds on herbaceous plants.
The death of Morison in 1683 redirected his attention to the ambitious scheme previously abandoned in his favour, the preparation of a general history of plants, such as that attempted by the Bauhins in the preceding generation. The first volume was issued in 1686 and the second in 1688, each containing nearly a thousand folio pages, the whole being completed without even the help of an amanuensis. A comprehensive summary of vegetable histology and physiology, including the researches of Columna, Jungius, Grew, and Malpighi, is prefixed to the first volume. Cuvier and Dupetit Thouars say of this (Biographie Universelle): ‘We believe that the best monument that could be erected to the memory of Ray would be the republication of this part of his work in a separate form.’ The two volumes describe about 6,900 plants, as compared with 3,500 in Bauhin's ‘History’ (1650), and the author's caution is evinced by his only admitting Grew's discovery of the sexuality of plants as ‘probable.’ In the preface he for the first time mentions the assistance of Samuel Dale [q. v.], who during his later years stood to him in much the same relations as Willughby had stood formerly.
In 1686 he also published Willughby's ‘Historia Piscium,’ more than half of which was his own work, the book being issued at the joint expense of Bishop Fell and the Royal Society. The Willughby family withheld the help given in the case of the ‘Ornithology.’
In 1690 he recast the ‘Catalogus Plantarum Angliæ’ into a systematic form under the title of ‘Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum,’ the first systematic English flora, which was for more than seventy years the pocket companion of every British botanist. In 1691 he published his ‘Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation.’ ‘Miscellaneous Discourses concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World’ followed in 1692. These two volumes (with the ‘Collection of Proverbs’) are his most popular works, and are important on account of the accurate views they propound as to the nature of fossils, and from the use made of them by Paley. Subsequently, at the suggestion of Dr. (afterwards Sir Tancred) Robinson [q. v.], Ray prepared a ‘Synopsis … Quadrupedum et Serpentini generis,’ a work in which, says Pulteney, ‘we see the first truly systematic arrangement of animals since the days of Aristotle.’ His classification was based upon the digits and the teeth; and he distinguished, though not under those names, the Solidungula, Ruminantia, Pachydermata, Proboscidea, and Primates. This work was published in 1693. He next set to work to arrange a similar synopsis of birds and fishes, based upon his editions of Willughby's works, but with many additions. Though finished early in 1694, this volume was not issued until after his death.
Ray now thought his life's work complete; but, at the request of Dr. (afterwards Sir Hans) Sloane, he revised a translation of Dr. Leonart Rauwolff's ‘Travels,’ adding a catalogue of the plants of the Levant and a collection of observations by other travellers in the east. This undertaking, completed in 1693, caused him to recast the catalogues in his own volume of travels, issued twenty years before, and to embody them in a ‘Stirpium Europæarum extra Britannias nascentium Sylloge,’ or systematic flora of Europe, which was published in 1694, and derives much additional importance from its preface, in which, for the first time, he embarks upon controversy, criticising the classifications of plants based by Rivinus and Tournefort on the flower. The controversy was continued in the second edition of the ‘Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarum’ in 1696; but, though Ray did not actually recant, he was evidently led to revise his ‘Methodus’ of 1682, and in the ‘Methodus Plantarum emendata et aucta,’ published in 1703, he not only abandoned the distinction between trees and shrubs, but in many points follows Rivinus and Tournefort as to the importance of the flower. It is this revised classification which Lindley says (Penny Cyclopædia, s.v. ‘Ray’) ‘unquestionably formed the basis of that method which, under the name of the system of Jussieu, is universally received at the present day.’ The book itself was, however, refused by the London publishers, and was printed at Leyden, the printers, the Waasbergs of Amsterdam, contrary to Ray's directions, fraudulently putting London upon the title-page.
In Gibson's edition of Camden's ‘Britannia,’ published in 1695, all the county lists of plants were drawn up by Ray, with the exception of that for Middlesex, a county he seldom visited; this portion was contributed by his friend James Petiver [q. v.]
From about 1690 Ray's attention was largely given to the study of insects. The notes which Willughby had made on this subject had been in his hands since his friend's death; but ill-health hindered his collecting and practical study. When Lady Granville at Exeter was judged insane because she collected insects, Ray was called as a witness to her sanity. At his death he left a completed classification of insects and a less complete ‘history’ of the group. These were published by Derham, and are said by Kirby to have ‘combined the system of Aristotle with that of Swammerdam, and cleared the way for Linnæus.’ He practically adopted the modern division of insects into the Metabola and Ametabola. Cuvier, speaking of his zoological work as a whole, terms it ‘yet more important’ than his botanical achievements, it being ‘the basis of all modern zoology.’ With the exception of these entomological researches, and a small devotional work, ‘A Persuasive to a Holy Life,’ published in 1700, the chief labour of the last years of Ray's life seems to have been the third volume of the ‘Historia Plantarum.’ This embodied Sloane's Jamaica collections, those of Father Camel in the Philippines, and others, 11,700 species in all. It was published in 1704. It is upon the completeness and critical value of this work that Ray's fame as a systematic botanist mostly depends. Pulteney, summarising his work as a zoologist and botanist, says that he became, ‘without the patronage of an Alexander, the Aristotle of England and the Linnæus of his age.’
Ray died at the Dewlands, 17 Jan. 1705, his last letter to Sloane, dated ten days before, in the middle of which his strength failed him, being printed by Derham in the ‘Philosophical Letters’ (1718). He was buried in the churchyard at Black Notley, a monument being erected at the expense of Bishop Compton and others, with a long Latin inscription by the Rev. William Coyte. This monument was removed into the church in 1737, an inscription being added describing it as a cenotaph; but it was replaced, probably by Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, who added a third inscription, in 1782.
By his wife, Margaret Oakeley, who survived him, Ray had four daughters—twins born in 1684, one of whom, Mary, died in 1697, and two others. Jane, the youngest, married Joshua Blower, vicar of Bradwell, near Braintree. Two letters from her to Sloane, dated 1727, are printed in the ‘Proceedings of the Essex Field Club’ (vol. iv. pp. clxii–clxiii).
Ray's collections passed into the possession of Dale, who was with him shortly before his death, and his herbarium thus came subsequently into the possession of the Society of Apothecaries, and in 1862 was transferred to the botanical department of the British Museum. His library of fifteen hundred volumes was sold by auction in 1707, and the catalogue, ‘Bibliotheca Rayana,’ is in the British Museum (Ellis, Letters of Eminent Persons, Camden Soc.) Many letters from him to Sloane and Petiver are in the Sloane MSS., and were published by Dr. Lankester in his edition of the ‘Correspondence’ (1848); but others by him and his correspondents passed with his unfinished work on insects into the hands of his friend, Dr. William Derham (1657–1735) [q. v.], rector of Upminster. Derham published the letters, omitting all merely personal matters, in 1718, and after his death, in 1735, all the manuscripts came into the possession of his wife's nephew, George Scott of Woolston Hall, Essex, who in 1760 published the ‘Select Remains of John Ray,’ including the itineraries of three of his botanical tours, and an unfinished sketch of his life by Derham. These manuscripts are all now in the botanical department of the British Museum.
Ray's ‘varied and useful labours have justly caused him to be regarded as the father of natural history in this country’ (Duncan, Life). Though in this connection it is undoubtedly his employment of system which has attracted most attention, an antecedent merit lies, perhaps, in the precision of his terminology. Gilbert White, in the ‘Natural History of Selborne,’ says of him (Letter xiv): ‘Our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators, in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries.’ This precision, and the strong bent of his mind towards the study of system as exhibiting the natural affinities of plants or animals, Ray probably owed in a considerable degree to his early association with Wilkins. It is especially in his zoological works that he shows himself to be no mere species-monger, but a philosophical naturalist. Of his ‘Synopsis Methodica Animalium’ (1693), Hallam says (Literary History, iii. 583): ‘This work marks an epoch in zoology, not for the additions of new species it contains, since there are few wholly such, but as the first classification of animals that can be reckoned both general and grounded in nature.’ With the exception of the merely descriptive work of Gesner, zoology had been, in fact, at a standstill since the time of Aristotle, and Ray was, as Cuvier said, ‘the first true systematist of the animal kingdom.’ Hallam calls attention to his method, Cuvier to its results. He was, says the former, ‘the first zoologist who made use of comparative anatomy. He inserts at length every account of dissections that he could find. … He does not appear to be very anxious about describing every species.’ ‘The particular distinction of his labours,’ writes Cuvier, ‘consists in an arrangement more clear and determinate than those of any of his predecessors, and applied with more consistency and precision. His distribution of the classes of quadrupeds and birds has been followed by English naturalists almost to our own days, and we find manifest traces of that he has adopted as to the latter class in Linnæus, in Brisson, in Buffon, and in all other ornithologists.’ In gauging Ray's position as a botanist, Haller's wholesale statement (Bibl. Botanica) that he was ‘the greatest botanist in the memory of man’ is of less value than the opinion of one so well known for his enthusiastic admiration of Linnæus as Sir J. E. Smith. Ray was, Smith says, ‘the most accurate in observation, the most philosophical in contemplation, and the most faithful in description, amongst all the botanists of our own, or perhaps any other, time.’ A more modern (German) critic, Julius Sachs (op. cit.), while insisting on Ray's indebtedness to Joachim Jung, points out the great advances the English botanist made, not only in classification, but also in histology and physiology. Jung (1587–1657) invented a comparative terminology for the parts of plants, and occupied himself also with the theory of classification, but published nothing. Ray, however, saw some manuscript notes of his as early as 1660, probably through the agency of Samuel Hartlib; and when Jung's pupil, Johann Vagetius, printed the master's ‘Isagoge Phytoscopica’ in 1678, Ray incorporated most of it, with full acknowledgment, into his ‘Historia Plantarum’ (vol. i. 1686), criticising, expanding, and supplementing it. ‘Enriched by Ray's good morphological remarks,’ says Sachs, ‘Jung's terminology passed to Linnæus, who adopted it as he adopted everything useful that literature offered him, improving it here and there, but impairing its spirit by his dry systematising manner.’ Before the dawn of modern physics or chemistry, it was impossible for physiology to advance far; but Ray's experiments on the movements of plants and on the ascent of the sap went almost as far as we can conceive possible under the circumstances, forestalling many conclusions only rediscovered of late years. Sachs speaks of the introduction to the ‘Historia’ in which Ray's experiments are described as ‘a general account of the science in fifty-eight pages, which, printed in ordinary size, would itself make a small volume, and which treats of the whole of theoretical botany in the style of a modern textbook.’
Of Ray's classification, the same authority, representing the most recent botanical opinion, also says: ‘Though he was not quite clear as regards the distinction, which we now express by the words dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous embryo, yet he may claim the great merit of having founded the natural system in part upon this difference in the formation of the embryo. He displays more conspicuously than any systematist before Jussieu the power of perceiving the larger cycles of affinity in the vegetable kingdom, and of defining them by certain marks. These marks, moreover, he determines not on a priori grounds, but from acknowledged relationships. But it is only in the main divisions of his system that he is thus true to the right course; in the details he commits many and grievous offences against his own method.’
Though the purity of Ray's Latin has formed the topic of many encomia, Ray's English style is perhaps hardly sufficiently distinguished to secure for him any great position in general literature. His merits as a writer on other topics than natural science are those of the man of science who amasses materials with painstaking care and critical capacity. John Locke, speaking of his ‘Travels’ (1673), mentions Ray's brief yet ingenious descriptions of everything that he saw, and his enlargement upon everything that was curious and rare; but it is only at the present day, since the rise of the scientific study of dialect and folklore, that the value of some of his collections, such as those of proverbs and rare words, is fully realised. Contrary to what has been sometimes said of him, Ray was never a mere compiler. He well knew how to adopt and combine the results of others with his own investigations, but he never blindly copied the statements of others, while he always acknowledged his obligations (cf. Sachs, History of Botany, p. 69).
There is a bust of Ray by Roubiliac, and oil portraits at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Engravings by Elder and Vertue, from a picture by Faithorne, were prefixed to some copies of his various works, and one by W. Hibbert is in the ‘Select Remains.’ They represent him as of fair complexion and emaciated appearance, agreeing with Calamy's description of him as consumptive. As early as 1686 he complained of the exposed situation of his house and of himself as ‘one who is subject to colds, and whose lungs are apt to be affected,’ and he began to suffer from severe ulcers in the legs. Linnæus perpetuated the name of Ray in the genus Rajania in the yam tribe, transposing Plumier's Jan Raia. In 1844 the Ray Society was established for the publication of works dealing with natural history, and among their first volumes were the ‘Memorials of John Ray,’ including Derham's ‘Life,’ the notices by Sir J. E. Smith in Rees's ‘Cyclopædia,’ and by Cuvier and Dupetit Thouars, in the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ and the itineraries, and ‘The Correspondence of John Ray,’ including the ‘Philosophical Letters’ and others, both volumes edited by Dr. Edwin Lankester [q. v.]
In addition to several papers in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ vols. iv.–xx., on sap, spontaneous generation, the macreuse, &c., and others of which little more than the titles are given, Ray's works are: 1. ‘Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium,’ Cambridge, 1660, 12mo. 2. ‘Appendix ad Catalogum,’ Cambridge, 1663, 12mo; 2nd ed. 1685. 3. ‘A Collection of English Proverbs … by J. R., M.A.,’ Cambridge, 1670, 8vo; 2nd ed., with ‘an appendix of Hebrew proverbs,’ 1678; 3rd ed., ‘with a collection of English words not generally used,’ and ‘an account of the … refining such metals and minerals as are gotten in England,’ 1737; reissue, 1742; 4th ed. 1768; 5th ed., revised by J. Balfour, 1813; republished as ‘A Handbook of Proverbs,’ by H. G. Bohn, 1855. 4. ‘Catalogus Plantarum Angliæ,’ London, 1670, 12mo; 2nd ed., enlarged, 1677. 5. ‘Observations … made on a Journey through Part of the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France, with a Catalogue of Plants not native of England,’ and an ‘Account of Francis Willughby Esq. his Voyage through a great part of Spain,’ London, 1673, 8vo; the catalogue in Latin with a separate title, ‘Catalogus Stirpium in Externis Regionibus,’ also issued separately; 2nd ed. as vol. ii. of Dr. John Harris's ‘Navigantium Bibliotheca,’ 1705, fol.; another as ‘Travels through the Low Countries,’ 1738. 6. ‘A Collection of English Words not generally used … in two Alphabetical Catalogues, the one … Northern, the other … Southern, with Catalogues of English Birds and Fishes, with an Account of the preparing and refining such Metals and Minerals as are gotten in England,’ London, 1674, 12mo; 2nd ed. 1691; afterwards mostly incorporated in the ‘Collection of Proverbs.’ 7. ‘Dictionariolum Trilingue … nominibus Anglicis, Latinis, Græcis, ordine parallēlōs dispositis,’ London, 1675, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1685; 3rd ed. 1689; 5th ed. as ‘Nomenclator Classicus sive Dictionariolum,’ 1706; another ed., Dublin, 1715; 6th ed. London, 1717; 7th ed. 1726; 8th ed. Dublin, 1735. 8. ‘Francisci Willughbeii … Ornithologiæ libri tres … recognovit, digessit, supplevit Joannes Raius,’ London, 1676, fol.; in English, ‘enlarged with many additions throughout,’ 1678. 9. ‘Methodus Plantarum nova,’ London, 1682, 8vo; 2nd ed. ‘emendata et aucta,’ Leyden, 1703. 10. ‘Francisci Willughbeii … de Historia Piscium libri quatuor … recognovit … librum etiam primum et secundum integros adjecit Johannes Raius,’ Oxford, 1686, fol. 11. ‘Historia Plantarum,’ vol. i. London, 1686, vol. ii. 1688, vol. iii. 1704, fol. 12. ‘Fasciculus Stirpium Britannicarum,’ London, 1688, 8vo, pp. 27. 13. ‘Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum,’ London, 1690, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1696; 3rd ed., by J. J. Dillenius, 1724. 14. ‘The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation,’ London, 1691, 8vo; 2nd ed. ‘much augmented,’ 1692; 3rd ed. 1701; 4th ed. 1704; 5th ed. 1709; 7th ed. 1717; 9th ed. 1727; 10th ed. 1735; 12th ed. 1759; others in 1762, at Edinburgh in 1798, and in 1827. 15. ‘Miscellaneous Discourses concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World,’ London, 1692, 8vo; 2nd ed. as ‘Three Physico-Theological Discourses,’ 1693; 3rd ed. by William Derham, 1713; 4th ed. 1721; 4th ed. ‘corrected,’ 1732. 16. ‘Synopsis Methodica Animalium Quadrupedum et Serpentini generis,’ London, 1693, 8vo. 17. ‘A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages,’ London, 1693, 2 vols. 8vo. 18. ‘Stirpium Europæarum extra Britannias nascentium Sylloge,’ London, 1694, 8vo. 19. ‘De variis Plantarum Methodis Dissertatio,’ London, 1696, 12mo, pp. 48. 20. ‘A Persuasive to a Holy Life,’ London, 1700, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1719; another, Glasgow, 1745, 12mo. 21. ‘Methodus Insectorum,’ London, 1705, 8vo, pp. 16. 22. ‘Historia Insectorum … Opus posthumum,’ with an ‘Appendix de Scarabæis Britannicis,’ by Martin Lister, London, 1710, 4to. 23. ‘Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium,’ London, 1713, 8vo. 24. ‘Philosophical Letters between … Mr. Ray and … his Correspondents,’ collected by Dr. Derham, London, 1718, 8vo; reprinted in part, with additional letters to Sloane, under the title, ‘Correspondence of John Ray,’ edited by Edwin Lankester, M.D., for the Ray Society, London, 1848. 25. ‘Select Remains … with his Life by Dr. Derham, published by George Scott,’ London, 1760; reprinted, with additions, as ‘Memorials of John Ray,’ for the Ray Society, London.
[Ray's works, especially the prefaces; the manuscripts of his letters and itineraries in the botanical department of the British Museum, and in Sloane MS. 4056; Derham's Life in the Select Remains, 1760; Pulteney's Sketches of the Progress of Botany; Rees's Cyclopædia, notice by Sir J. E. Smith; Boulger's Life and Work of John Ray; Transactions of the Essex Field Club, vol. iv. (1886), and Domestic Life of John Ray, Proceedings of the Essex Field Club, vol. iv. (1892); Fitch's John Ray as an Entomologist, ib.]