Journal of Proceedings.
clxvii
physicians, yet without success, growing yearly worse and worse.
Besides, I have been very much haunted with a troublesome diarrhoea,
frequently recurring, so that you may well think I can have but little
heart to mind natural history; but yet I am so far engaged, that I
cannot shake it off."
Milton's reference to another may appropriately be applied here :
" Yet I argue not,
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer
Right onward."
It was, doubtless, this letter to Derham that induced Pulteney in his
'Sketches' to say that Kay began his work on insects at the advanced
age of 75, which it will be seen from what has gone before is incorrect. A
mouth later, June 30th, 1702, he again writes to Derham complaining
of his increasing age, lameness, and pain continuing : " It is true of
late years I have diverted myself by searching out the various species of
insects to be found hereabouts ; but I have confined myself chiefly to two
or three sorts, viz: Papilios, diurnal and nocturnal, beetles, bees and
spiders. Of the first, of these, I have found about 300 kinds, and there
are still remaining many more undiscovered by me, and all within the
compass of a few miles. How many, then, may we reasonably conjec-
ture are to be found in England, in Europe, in the East and West Indies,
in the whole world ! The beetles are a tribe near as numerous as these,
and the flies of all sorts not fewer. I have now given over my inquisi-
tion, by reason of my disability to prosecute and my approaching end,
which I pray Clod fit me for. You that have more time before you may
profitably bestow some of your spare hours upon such inquiries, and may
probably make useful discoveries—at least may reap a great deal of
pleasure and satisfaction in finding out and bringing to light some of the
works of God not before taken notice of. So I heartily bid you fare-
well."
In a note to this letter Dr. Derham adds : " At the time when
this letter was written, I was but a novice in the history of insects,
particularly of gnats, having begun my strict observations of them but the
foregoing spring (see Hist. Ins., pp. 262-6)." Derham continued his ob-
servations with good results, and made some interesting discoveries. He
traced the life histories of some thirty distinct species near Upminster in
this county, of which village he was rector.
Later in the same year (1702), we find Kay not unwilling to under-
take fresh work. He thus writes to Sloane : " Mrs. Dale tells me that
some friends at London talk of imposing a new task upon me, that is,
of describing such exotic insects as are found in the museums of the
virtuosi about London; which, if there be no more able and better quali-
fied person living in or near the city for such an undertaking, I should
not be much averse from, if it please God to continue me any tolerable
measure of health and ease, for that I may do sitting, and without much
motion. As for our English insects, I think I may, without vanity,
say, that I have taken more pains about some tribes of them than any
Englishman before me." Then follow more details in his various
letters of the progress of the work, and requests for specimens of exotic
species from Sloane. Petiver, Stonestreet and others, and arrangements for
supplying figures (" icons" he. calls them). Like the majority of entomo-
logists in later times, Ray paid especial attention to Lepidoptera. To
Petiver he says: " For the English butterflies you have been more indus-
trious and happy than I, in discovering 55 species ; whereas all that I
could find or procure amount to no more than 43 " ; and to Sloane : " Of the
nocturnal papilios [moths], should I live twenty years longer [he was