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 Linnæus. 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]
Dr Robinson appears, by his notices contained in the "Philosophical Letters between the late learned Mr Ray and several of his ingenious Correspondents," to have been of considerable use to our author in transmitting information on every subject that seemed interesting to the latter, and especially in procuring objects for description. In one of his communications from Geneva is a passage respecting the celebrated Malpighi, which exhibits the character of that great anatomist in a favourable light:—"I had several conferences with S. Malpighi at Bononia, who expressed a great respect for you, and is not a little proud of the character you give him in your Method. Plantar. Nov., which book I had presented him withal a day before. Just as I left Bononia I had a lamentable spectacle of Malpighi's house all in flames, occasioned by the negligence of his old wife. All his pictures, furniture, books, and manuscripts, were burnt. I saw him in the very heat of the calamity, and methought I never beheld so much Christian patience and philosophy in any man before; for he comforted his wife, and condol'd nothing but the loss of his papers, which are more lamented than the Alexandrian Library, or Bartholine's Bibliothece at Copenhagen."
Of the epistolary correspondence of this gentleman, and of Sir Hans Sloane, it may be interesting to some of our readers to peruse a specimen:—
Dr Robinson to Mr Ray.
"London, August 1, —84.
"Sir,—I have sent you two Macreuses, male and female, and hope they will come safe to Black Notley. My ingenious and worthy friend Mr Charlton (now at London) procur'd them for me at Paris, who hath them both design'd to the life in proper colours by the most accurate hand in France. If you saw the pictures I believe they would give you a better insight than these skins, which are a little broke and chang'd; yet nevertheless your most discerning faculties may discover that in the dark which few can distinguish at noon-day. This Parisian bird (very famous of late) may be no unwelcome subject, it being in Lent, and upon maigre days, the greatest dainty of convents. I have been told by several of the most learned priests beyond sea, that the macreuse was as much a fish as the barnacle (and indeed I am of the same opinion), that the blood was the same in every quality with that of fishes; as also the fat, which (as they falsely affirm) will not fix, dry, or grow hard, but always remains in an oily consistence. Upon these and other reasons the Sorbonists have ranked the macreuse in the class of fishes. For the rest I refer you to my paper from Paris, and impatiently wait for your judgment, for which I have a particular esteem."
The bird referred to in this letter, and concerning which Mr Ray had not previously been able to satisfy himself, is the scoter or black-duck (Anas nigra of Linnæus, Latham, and Temminck). "Why they of the Church of Rome should allow this bird to be eaten in Lent, and upon other fasting days, more than others of this kind," we see no reason, any more than Mr Ray did. Perhaps the story of the barnacle's originating from a shell of the same name, may have been invented for a similar purpose. On this head we have the following testimony from Hector Boëce:—"All trees that are cast into the seas, by process of time, appear first worm-eaten, and in the small holes and bores thereof grow small worms; first, they show their head and feet, and last of all they show their plumes and wings; finally, when they are coming to the just measure and quantity of geese, they fly in the air as other fowls do, as was notably proven in the year of God 1480, in sight of many people, beside the Castle of Pitsligo." The evidence of Gerard, the herbalist, on this subject is an excellent specimen of leasing:—"What our eyes have seen," saith the venerable man, "and our hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Soulders, wherein are found broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwrecks; also the trunks and bodies, with the branches, of old and rotten trees, cast up there likewise, whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth into certain shells, in shape like those of the muscle, but sharper-pointed, and of a whitish colour, and the end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and muscles are, and the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude mass or lump, which, in time, cometh into the shape and form of a bird. When it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and then the first thing that appeareth is the aforesaid lace or string; next cometh the legs of the bird hanging out; and, as the bird groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it has all come forth and hangeth only by the bill. In short space after it cometh to full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, having black legs and bill or beak, and feathers black and white, spotted in such manner as our magpie, called in some places pie-annes, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and all those places adjoining, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three-pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repair to me, and I will satisfy them by the testimonies of good witnesses."
Now the whole substance of this wondrous narrative is simply this:—There is a species of goose called barnacle, and there is a species of cirripedous animal or shell-fish bearing the same name. The latter animal is furnished with certain filamentary organs which may be imagined to bear a semblance to feathers; and hence the conclusion that it must be a bird in the progress of development, which is finally converted into a goose. A refutation of the inference here made does not require the acuteness of an Aristotle. Gerard saw the shells, no doubt, but the rest he dreamt; and the good people beside the Castle of Pitsligo may have seen a flock of geese, but what else they saw nobody cares. But let us now hear Sir Hans.
Sir Hans Sloane to Mr Ray.