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.