The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
Brent Nelson
general editor
As transcribed in R. T. Gunther, Early science in Oxford. Vol. 1. Oxford: OUP, 1923, pp. 252-3.
A horrible big head or cranium with great long teeth, of a Hippopotamus.
An extraordinary misbirth of a calf, which had been carried by the cow for many years and had then come to the light, dead and monstrous.
Two small worm-eaten loaves of the time of the Siege of 
Oxford.
Indian and other garments, some from Davis Straits. Cf. 
Benthem.
Large calculi of men and animals, including the one mentioned by Borrichius. It was said to weigh 2 lb., but is not as large as a child's head. It was taken out of a woman of Woodstock after her death.
The large corn or Clavus, mentioned by Benthem, p. 327. It was probably a large nail.
Lower jaw of a woman, with a great swelling as big as a Welsh
nut. She is said to have suffered severe toothache.
Hollow stick, filled with quicksilver.
A petrified skull, more encrusted than the one at Cambridge.
A plaster cast of a human foot with two knobs instead of toes. Young Thomas Hearne is such an ignoramus that he shows it as a real foot.
Skeleton of a Pygmy: teeth are quite white and pointed. It is considered to be the skeleton of a monkey. It is not an ell high. Cf. Tyson, Orang. The librarian maintains it to be an old male, because its dentition is complete. 'Credat Judaeus Apella.'
A small Whale said to have been caught in the river at Gloucester.
A frightful large Indian Bat, over an ell broad across the out-stretched wings.
A monstrous Lamb with two bodies, eight feet, four ears, but one head.
An unheard-of large bone, said to have been found in the ground under St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Benthem is not right in describing it as the hip-bone of a Kühnen. It is a femur,
3½ spans long, and nearly 2 spans thick.
Urn found at Sittingbourne in Kent.
Sword with which James I knighted Sir Loin.
Bernard's Map of China.
Bladder of a Man, a German ell long, and capable of holding 4 maas.
Fuller's Paintings of Muscles.
Skeleton and stuffed Skin of a Woman who had eighteen husbands, and, because she killed four of them, was hung. The skin may justly be called well-tanned leather. Benthem mentions the skeleton being in St. Johns in his time, but he errs when he speaks of seventeen husbands: there were eighteen.
Benthem's 'Stuffed Moor' is an amusing mistake for a Mummy which he saw here. It just shows what mistakes are possible, when things are only looked at superficially.
A large petrified Fungum marinum.
Two large Spanish Reeds, or rather arundines or cannas, grown in India. One was as thick as an arm, the other somewhat thinner, but much longer than the whole room, about 30 feet. It hangs obliquely against the wall.
The Hand of a supposed Siren, dried. It is about half the length of a man's hand, and is quite like one ...
Joseph's Coat.
Cube of Wood and Ring.
Two large Crocodiles, mentioned by Borrichius.
A Fine Cranium, overgrown with moss.
Cranium hunanum with the quatuor tuberculis, just as Benthem
has it.
'On the whole things are in great disorder, full of dust and soot. There are also many things that ought not to be in an Anatomy, but rather in an Art Collection than in the Ashmolean Museum. When a lecture is given in Anatomy, it is not given here, but in one of the other Schools (i.e. in the Bodleian); presumably that none of the specimens may get injured, as might possibly happen.'