Historiæ sive Synopsis Conchyliorum libri iv., 2 vols. folio, 1685-1693. An edition was published, in 1770, by Mr Huddesford, keeper of the Ashmolean Library at Oxford. Of this work there is a new impression by Mr Dillwyn, with a scientific index. The plates of the Historia Conchyliorum were executed from drawings by his daughters, and are in general accurate.
As a specimen of the correspondence which naturalists hold with one another, we may present the following letter to Mr Ray:—
"Sir,—August 18, I passed through Marton Woods, under Pimco-Moore, in Craven. In these woods I then found very great plenty of Mushromes, and many of them then wither'd, and coal-black; but others new sprung and flourishing. They are some of them of a large size, and yet few much bigger than the Champignon or ordinary red-grilled eatable Mushrome, and very much of the shape of that; that is an exactly round cap, or crown, which is thick in flesh, and open deep gills underneath; a fleshy, and not hollow, round foot-stalk, of about six fingers breadth above ground, and ordinarily as thick as my thumb. The foot-stalk, gills, and cap, all of a milk-white colour. If you cut any part of this mushrome, it will bleed exceeding freely and plentifully a pure white juice. Concerning which, note,
"1. That the youngest did drop much more plentifully and freely than those that were at their full growth and expansion. That the dried and withered ones had no signs of milk in them that I then discern'd.
"2. That this milk tastes and smells like pepper, and is much hotter upon the tongue.
"3. That it is not clammy or roapy to the touch.
"4. That although I used the same knife to cut a hundred of them, yet I could not perceive all that time, that the milk changed colour (as is usual with most vegetable milks) upon the knife blade.
"5. That it became, in the glass viol I drew it into, suddenly concrete and stiff, and in some days dried into a firm cake, or lump, without any serum at all.
"6. That it then also, when dried, retained its keen biting taste, as it does at this day, yet not so fierce: Its colour is now of a yellowish green, yet very pale.
"7. This milk flows much faster from about the outmost rimm, or part equivalent to the bark of plants, than from the more inward parts, &c.