I take the boldness to salute you as a person of singular worth and learning, and whom I very much respect and honour. I presented my service to you by my son some months past; and had thought before this time to have done it by him again. But the time of his return to London being yet uncertain, I would not defer those at present unto you. I should be very glad to serve you by any observations of mine against the second edition of your Pinax, which I cannot sufficiently commend. I have observed and taken notice of many animals in these parts, whereof three years ago a learned gentleman of this country desired me to give him some account, which, while I was doing, the gentleman, my good friend, died. I shall only at this time present and name some few unto you, which I found not in your catalogue. A Trachurus, which yearly cometh before or in the head of the herrings, called therefore a horse. Stella marina testacea, which I have often found upon the sea-shore. An Astacus marinus pediculi marini facie, which is sometimes taken with the lobsters at Cromer, in Norfolk. A Pungitius marinus, whereof I have known many taken among weeds by fishers, who 394 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. [1668. drag by the sea-shore on this coast. A Scarabæus Capricornus odoratus which I take to be mentioned by Moufetus, fol. 150. "I have taken some abroad; one in my cellar, which I now send;" he saith, "Nucem moscl1atam et cinnamomum vere spiral." To me it smelt like roses, santalum, and ambergris. I have thrice met with Mergus maximus Farensis Clusii; and have a draught thereof. They were taken about the time of herring-fishing at Yarmouth. One was taken upon the shore, not able to fly away, about ten years ago. I sent one to Dr. Scarborough. Twice I met with a Skua Hoyèri, the draught whereof I also have. One was shot in a marsh, which I gave unto a gentleman, which I can send you. Another was killed feeding upon a dead horse near a marsh ground. Perusing your catalogue of plants, upon Acorus verus, I find these words:-" found by Dr. Brown neer Lynn:"- wherein probably there may be some mistake; for I cannot affirm, nor I doubt any other, that it is found thereabout. About 25 years ago, I gave an account of this plant unto Mr. Goodyeere, and more lately to Dr. How, unto whom I sent some notes, and a box full of the fresh juli. This elegant plant groweth very plentifully, and leaveth its julus yearly by the banks of Norwich river, chiefly about Claxton and Surlingham; and also between Norwich and Hellsden-bridge; so that I have known Heigham church, in the suburbs of Norwich, strewed all over with it. It has been transplanted, and set on the sides of marsh ponds in several places of the country, where it thrives and beareth the julus yearly.

Sesamoides salamanticum magnum;-why you omit Sesamoides salamantium parvum? This groweth not far from Thetford and Brandon, and plentiful in neighbour places, where I found it, and have it in my hortus hyemalis, answering the description in Gerard.

Urtica romana, which groweth with button seed bags, is not in the catalogue. I have found it to grow wild at Golston by Yarmouth, and transplanted it to other places.

I received your courteous letter, and am sorry some diversions have so long delayed this my second unto you. You are very exact in the account of the fungi. I have met with two, which I have not found in any author; of which I have sent you a rude draught inclosed. The first, an elegant fungus ligneru, found in a hollow sallow. I have one of them by me, but, without a very good opportunity, dare not send it, fearing it should be broken. Unto some it seemed to resemble some noble or princely ornament of the head, and so might be called fungru regius; unto others, a turret, top of a cupola, or lantern of a building; and so might be named fungus pterygoides, pinnacularis, or lanterniformis. You may name it as you please. The second, fungru ligneus teres antliarum, or fungus ligularis longissimru, consisting or made of many woody strings, about the bigness of round points or laces; some above half a yard long, shooting in a bushy form from the trees, which serve under ground for pumps. I have observed divers, especially in Norwich, where wells are sunk deep for pumps.

The fungus phalloides I found not far from Norwich, large and very fetid, answering the description of Hadrianus Junius. I have a part of one dried still by me.

Fungus rotundus major I have found about ten inches in diameter, and [have] half a one dried by me.

Another small paper contains the side draughts of fibulæ marinæ pellucidæ, or sea buttons, a kind of squalder; and referring to urtica marina, which I have observed in great numbers by Yarmouth, after a flood and easterly winds. They resemble the pure crystal buttons, chamfered or welted on the sides, with two small holes at the ends. They cannot be sent; for the included water, or thin jelly, soon runneth from them.

I received your courteous letter; and with all respects I now again salute you. The mola piscis is almost yearly taken on our coast. This last year one was taken of about two hundred pounds weight. Divers of them I have opened; and have found many lice sticking close unto their gills, whereof I send you some. In your Pinax I find onocrotalus, or pelican; whether you mean those at St. James's, or others brought over, or such as have been taken or killed here, I know not. I have one hung up in my house, which was shot in a fen ten miles off, about 7 Bait for codling.-G. 8 The Garrulous Roller. 9 Not uncommon; I had a young one brought me a few years ago.-G. 1 It is becoming scarce at Cromer. The fat amber most commonly occurs.-G. 398 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. [1668. four years ago; and because it was so rare, some conjectured it might be one of those which belonged unto the king, and flew away. Ciconia, rarò huc adeolat. I have seen two in a watery marsh, eight miles off; another shot, whose case is yet to be seen. Vitulus marinus. In tractibus borealibus et Scotia. No rarity upon the coast of Norfolk. At low water I have known them taken asleep under the cliffs. Divers have been brought to me. Our seal is different from the Mediterranean seal; as having a rounder head, a shorter and stronger body. Rana piscatrix. I have often known taken on our coast; and some very large. Xiphias, or gladius piscis, or sword-fish, we have in our seas. I have the head of one which was taken not long ago, entangled in the herring-nets. The sword about two feet in length. Among the whales you may very well put in the spermacetus, or that remarkably peculiar whale which so aboundeth in spermaceti. About twelve years ago we had one cast up on our shore, near Wells, which I described in a peculiar chapter in the last edition of my "Pseudodoxia Epidemica;" and another was, divers years before, cast up at Hunstanton; both whose heads are yet to be seen. Ophidion, or, at least, ophidion nostras, commonly called a sting-fish, having a small prickly fin running all along the back, and another a good way on the belly, with little black spots at the bottom ofthe back fin. If the fishermen's hands be touched or scratched with this venomous fish, they grow painful and swell. The figure hereof I send you in colours. They are common about Cromer. See Schoneveldeus, "De Ophidia." Piscis octogoniru, or octangularis, answering the description of Cataphractus Schonevelde; only his is described with the fins spread; and when it was fresh taken, and a large one. However, this may be nostras, I send you one; but I have seen much larger, which fishermen have brought me. 2 The Stork. 3 Very rarly seen at Cromer. I think they are met with on sandbanks near Hunstanton.-G 4 Frog-fish 1668.] MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 399 Physsalus. I send one which hath been long opened and shrunk and lost the colour. When I took it upon the seashore, it was full and plump, answering the figure and description of Rondeletius. There is also a like figure at the end of Muffetus. I have kept them alive; but observed no motion, except of contraction and dilatation. When it is fresh, the prickles or bristles are of a brisk green and amethist colour. Some call it a sea-mouse. Our mullet is white and imberbis; but we have also a mullus barbatus ruber miniaceus, or cinnaberinus; somewhat rough, and but dry meat. There is of them major and minor, resembling the figures in Johnstonus, tab. xvii, Rotbart. Of the acus marinus, or needle fishes, I have observed three sorts. The acus Aristotelis, called here an addercock; acus major, or garfish, with a green verdigrease back-bone; the other, saurus acui similis. Acus sauroides, or sauriformis, as it may be called; much answering the description of saurus Rondeletii. In the hinder part much resembling a mackerell. Opening one, I found not the back-bone green. Johnstonus writes nearest to it, in his Acus Minor. I send you the head of one dried; but the bill is broken. I have the whole draught in picture. This kind is much more near than the other, which are common, and is a rounder fish. Vermes marini are large worms found two feet deep in the sea-sands, and are digged out at the ebb for bait. The avicula Maialis, or May chit; is a little dark grey bird, somewhat bigger than a stint, which cometh in May, or the latter end of April, and stayeth about a month. A marsh bird, the legs and feet black, without heel; the bill black, about three quarters of an inch long. They grow very fat, and are accounted a dainty dish. A dorhawk, a bird not full so big as a pigeon, somewhat of a woodcock colour, and paned somewhat like a hawk, with a bill not much bigger than that of a titmouse, and a very wide throat; known by the name of a dorhawk, or preyer upon beetles, as though it were some kind of accipiter muscarius. In brief, this accipiter cantharophagus, or dorhawk, is avis 5 I have seen a sea-mouae taken out of a cod-fish, but thev are not common at Cromer. -G. 400 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. [1668. rostratula gutturosa, quasi coaxans, scarabæis vescens, sub vesperam volans, ovum speciosissimum excludens. I have had many of them; and am sorry I have not one to send you. I spoke to a friend to shoot one; but I doubt they are gone over. Of the upupas, divers have been brought me; and some I have observed in these parts, as I travelled about. The aquila Gesneri I sent alive to Dr. Scarburg, who told me it was kept in the colledge. It was brought me out of Ireland. I kept it two years in my house. I am sorry I have only one feather of it to send you. A shoeing-horn or barker, from the figure of the bill and barking note; a long made bird, of white and blackish colour; fin-footed; a marsh-bird; and not rare some times of the year in Marshland. It may upon view be called, recurvirostra nostras, or avoseta; much resembling the avosetæ species in Johnstonus, tab. 5. I send you the head in picture. Four curlews I have kept in large cages. They have a pretty shrill note; not hard to be got in some parts of Norfolk. Have you the scorpius marinus Schoneveldei? Have you put in the musca tuliparum muscata? That bird which I said much answered the description of garrulus argentoratensis, I send you. It was shot on a tree ten miles off, four years ago. It may well be called the parrot jay, or garrulus psittacoides speciosus. The colours are much faded. If you have it before, I should be content to have it again; otherwise you may please to keep it. Garrulus Bohemicus probably you have. A pretty handsome bird, with the fine cinnabrian tips of the wings. Some which I have seen have the tail tipt with yellow, which is not in their description. I have also sent you urtica mas, which I lately gathered at Golston, by Yarmouth, where I found it to grow also twenty- five years ago. Of the stella marina testacea, which I sent you, I do not find the figure in any book. I send you a few flies, which, some unhealthful years, come about the first part of September. I have observed them so numerous upon plashes in the marshes and marish ditches, 6 The Golden Eagle. 8 The Waxen Chatterer. 7 The Garrulous Roller. 9 Marshy. 1668.] MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 401 that, in a small compass, it were no hard matter to gather a peck of them. I brought some; what my box would hold; but the greatest part are scattered, lost, or given away. For memory's sake, I wrote on my box muscæ palustres autumnales.

I am very joyful that you have recovered your health, whereof I heartily wish the continuation for your own and the public good. And I humbly thank you for the courteous present of your book. With much delight and satisfaction I had read the same not once in English. I must needs acknowledge your comment more acceptable to me than the text, which I am sure is a hard obscure piece without it, though I have not been a stranger unto the vitriary art, both in England and abroad. I perceive you have proceeded far in your Pinax. These few at present I am bold to propose, and hint unto you; intending, God willing, to salute you again. A paragraph might probably be annexed unto Quercus. Though we have not all the exotic oaks, nor their excretions, yet these and probably more supercrescencies, productions, or excretions may be observed in England. Viscum-polypodium-juli-pilulæ-gemmæ foraminatæ foliorum-excrementum fungosum verticibus scatens-excrementum lanatum-capitula squamosa jacææ æmula-nodi- melleus liquor-tubera radicum vermibus scatentia-muscus -lichen-fungus-varæ quercinæ. Capillaris marina sparsa, fucus capillaris marinus sparsus; sive, capillitius marinus; or sea perriwig. Strings of 402 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. [1668. this are often found on the sea-shore. But this is the full figure, I have seen three times as large. I send you also a little elegant sea-plant, which I pulled from a greater bush thereof, which I have, resembling the backbone of a fish. Fucus marinus vertebratus pisciculi spinum referens, ichthyorachius; or what you think fit. And though perhaps it be not worth the taking notice of formicaæ arenariæ marinæ, or at least muscus formicarius marinus: yet I observe great numbers by the sea-shore, and at Yarmouth, an open sandy coast, in a sunny day, many large and winged ones, may be observed upon, and rising out of the wet sands, when the tide falls away. Notonecton, an insect that swimmeth on its back, and mentioned by Muffetus, may be observed with us. I send you a white reed-chock by name. Some kind of funco, or little sort thereof. I have had another very white when fresh. Also the draught of a sea-fowl, called a sheerwater, billed like a cormorant, fiery, and snapping like it upon any touch. I kept twenty of them alive five weeks, cramming them with fish, refusing of themselves to feed on any thing; and wearied with cramming them, they lived seventeen days without food. They often fly about fishing ships when they clean their fish, and throw away the offal. So that it may be referred to the lari, as larus niger gutture albido rostro adunco. Gossander.-Videtur esse puphini species. Worthy sir, that which we call a gossander, and is no rare fowl among us, is a large well-coloured and marked diving fowl, most answering the merganser. It may be like the puffin in fatness and rankness; but no fowl is, I think, like the puffin, differenced from all others by a peculiar kind of bill. Burganders, not so rare as Turn makes them, common in Norfolk, so abounding in vast and spacious warrens. If you have not yet put in larus minor, or stern, it would not be omitted, so common about broad waters and plashes not far from the sea.

I am sorry I have had diversions of such necessitie, as to hinder my more sudden salute since I received your last. I thank you for the sight of the spermaceti, and such kind of effects from lightning and thunder I have known, and about four yeares ago about this towne, when I with many others saw fire-balls fly, and go of when they met with resistance, and one carried away the tiles and boards of a leucomb window of my own howse, being higher than the neighbour howses, and breaking agaynst it with a report like a good canon. I set down that occurrence in this citty and country, and have it somewhere amongst my papers, and fragments of a woeman's hat that was shiver'd into pieces of the bignesse of a groat. I have still by me too, a litle of the spermaceti of our whale, as also the oyle and balsome which I made with the oyle and spermaceti. Our whale was worth 500lib. my apothecarie got about fiftie pounds in one sale of a quantitie of sperm.

I made enumeration of the excretions of the oake, which might bee observed in England, because I conceived they would be most observable if you set them downe together, not minding w hetber there were any addition: by excrementum fungosum vermiculis scatens I only meant an usual excretion, soft and fungous at first, and pale, and sometimes cover'd in part with a fresh red, growing close unto the sprouts; it is full of maggots in litle woodden cells, which afterwards turne into litle reddish brown or bay flies. Of the tubera indica vermiculis scatentia I send you a peece, they are as bigg as good tennis-balls and ligneous.

The litle elegant fucus may come in as a difference of the abies, being somewhat like it, as also unto the 4 corallium in Gerhard, of the sprouts, whereof I could never find any 3 Where it is published (erroneously) as a letter to Mr. Dugdale. 1668-9.] MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 405 sprouts, wings, or leaves as in the abies, whether fallen off I know not, though I call'd it ichthyorndius or pisciculi spinam referens, yet pray do you call it how you please. I send you now the figure of a quercus mar. or alga, which I found by the sea-shore, differing from the common as being denticulated, and in one place there seems to be the beginning of some flower-pod or seed-vessell.

A draught of the morinellus marinus, or sea-dotterel, I now send you; the bill should not have been so black, and the leggs more red, and a greater eye of dark red in the feathers or wing and back: it is less and differently colour'd from the common dotterell, which cometh to us about March and September: these sea-dotterels are often shot near the sea. A yare-whelp or barker, a marsh-bird, the bill two inches long, the legges about that length, the bird of a brown or russet colour.

That which is knowne by the name of a bee-bird, is a litle dark gray bird; I hope to get one for you.

That which I call'd betulæ carptor, and should rather have call'd it alni carptor, whereof I sent a rude draught; it feeds upon alderbuds, nucaments or seeds, which grow plentifully here; they fly in little flocks.

That call'd by some a whin-bird, is a kind of ox-eye, but the shining yellow spot on the back of the head, is scarce to bee well imitated by a pensill.

I confesse for such litle birds I am much unsatisfy'd on the names given to many by countrymen, and uncertaine what to give them myself, or to what classis of authors cleerly to reduce them. Surely there are many found among us which are not described; and therefore such which you cannot well reduce, may (if at all) be set down after the exacter nomination of small birds as yet of uncertain class or knowledge.

I present you with a draught of a water-fowl, not common, and none of our fowlers can name it, the bill could not bee exactly expressed by a coale or black chalk, whereby the little 4 The ring plover, or sea lark, plentiful near Blakeney; charadrius hiaticula.-G. 5 Names of two distinct species, the godwit, or yarwhelp, scolopax ægocephala, and the spotted redshank or barker, S. Totanus. The description agrees with neither. 6 Probably the beam-bird, or flycatcher; Muscicupa Grisola.-G. Possibly the goldencrested wren, Motacilla Regulus. 406 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. [1668-9. incurvitie at the upper end of the upper bill, and small recurvitie of the lower is not discerned; the wings are very short, and it is finne-footed; the bill is strong and sharp, if you name it not I am uncertain what to call it, pray consider this anatula or mergulus melanoleucus rostro acuto.

I send you also the heads of mustela, or mergus mustelaris mas. et fæmina, called a wesel, from some resemblance in the head, especially of the female, which is brown or russet, not black and white, like the male, and from their preying quality upon small fish. I have found small eeles, small perches, and small muscles in their stomachs. Have you a sea-phaysant, so commonly called from the resemblance of an hen-phaisant in the head and eyes, and spotted marks on the wings and back, and with a small bluish flat bill, tayle longer than other ducks, longe winges, crossing over the tayle like those of a long winged hawke.

Have you taken notice of a breed of porci solidi pedes? I first observed them above twenty yeares ago, and they are still among us. Our nerites or neritæ are litle ones. I queried whether you had dentalia, becaus probably you might have met with them in England; I never found any on our shoare, butt one brought me a few small ones, with smooth small shells, from the shoare. I shall enquire farther after them. Urtica marina minor, Johnst. tab. xviii. I have found more then once by the sea-side.

The hobby and the merlin would not bee omitted among hawks; the first comming to us in the spring, the other about autumn. Beside the ospray we have a larger kind of eagle, call'd an eruh. I have had many of them.

Worthy deare sir, if I can do any thing farther which may be serviceable unto you, you shall ever readily command my endeavors; who am, sir, Your humble and very respectfull servant, Thomas Browne. 8 This must be the smew, mergus albellus: which comes on the coast of Norfolk in hard winters.-G. 9 The pin-tailed duck.-G. 1 Several ospreys have been taken near Cromer.-G. 2 Erne?-The white-tailed or cinereous eagle; falco albicilla.

Yours of the 14th instant I received, as full of learning in discovering so many very great curiosities as kindness in communicating them to mee and promising your 3 See letter at p. 395; the date of which, Aug. 18, I see on reference to the MS. was wrong copied;-it should have been Aug. 14, 1669. 1668.] MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. 443 farther assistance. For which I shall always proclaim by my tongue as well as my pen my due resentment and thanks.

The two fungi you sent the figures of are the finest and rarest as to their figure I have ever seen or read of; and so is your fibula marina, far surpassing one I received from Cornwall much of the same bigness, neither of which I find any where mentioned. The urtica marina minor Jonst. and physalus I never met with, nor have been informed of the canis charcarius alius Jonst. Many of the lupus piscis I have seen, and have bin informed by the king's fishmonger they are taken on our coast, but was not satisfied for some reasons of his relation soe as to enter it into my Pinax; though 't is said to bee peculiar to the river Albis>, yet I thought they might come sometimes thence to your coasts. Trutta marina I have; and the loligo, sepia, and polypus, the three sorts of the molles have bin found on our western coasts, which shall bee exactly distinguished-as for the salmons taken above London towards Richmond and nearer, and that in great quantity, some years they have all of them their lower jaw as you observe, and our fishermen say they usually wear off some part of it on the banks, or else the lower would grow into the upper and soe starve them, as they have sometimes seen. You ask whether I have the mullus ruber asper, or the piscis octangularis Wormii, or the sea worms longer than the earth worms, or the garrulus Argentor. or the duck cald a May chit, or the Dorhawke. The four first I have no account of, the two later I know not especially by those names, wee have noe hawke by that name--your account of Succinum as all the rest will be registred. As for the Aquila Gesneri I never saw nor heard of any such in the colledge for this 25 years last past. Sir you are pleasd to say you shall write more if you know how not to be superfluous-- certainly what you have hitherto done hath bin all curiosities, and I doubt not but you have many more by you. I can direct you noe further then your own reason dictates to you- Besides those mentioned in the Pinax I have 100 to add, and cannot give you a particular of them. Whatever you write is either confirmative or additional. I doe entreat this favour 4 This bird was not mentioned by Browne as at all resembling a duck. 444 MISCELLANEOUS CORRESPONDENCE. [1669. of you to inform mee fu1ler of those unknown things mentioned herein, and to add the name, page, &c. of the author if mentioned by any, or else to give them such a latin name as you have done for the fungi, which may bee descriptive and differencing of them-Sir I hope the public interest and your own good genius will plead the pardon desired by Your humble Servant