Chapter VI: Introduction (5)

[Draft of a letter from Sir Thomas Browne, described in the
Catalogue of the Rawlinson MSS. as to the Secretary of the Royal
Society, but from its contents evidently written to Merrett,
whose letter, dated 8th May, 1669, is in part a reply to it.]

[_Fol 58._] Honord Sr I humbly thank you for your care of my sonnes paper & the Royll Societie for their acceptance of it. If hee bee in health I knowe hee is mindfull of their co[=m]ands receiued aboue 2 months ago by a letter from Mr. Oldenburg.[121] I haue not heard from him of late the last I receiued was from Komorn[R] in Lower Hungary and hee was then going to the mine countryes. I think the Rowd may bee calld Rutilus ventre magis compresso[122] w^{ch} is the first discoverable difference to the eye. The weazelling [_see Note 60_] is as you see in the draught a long fish figura ad teretem vergente. somewhat of the shape butt differing in the head from the _mustela viuipara_ of Schoneueld. butt not lozenged on the back though the back bee much darker then the other parts. I send you the figure of the head of a cristated wild duck. it is black blackish [_sic_] in the greater part of the body some white on the brest & wings blewish legges & bill & seems to bee of the Latirostrous tribe perhaps you haue it not. it may bee called _Anas macrolophos_ [Fol. 59] as excelling in that kind.[123] there is also a draught of one sort of _mergus cristatus_ resembling that of Aldrovandus or Johnstonus where there is only the figure of the head only this is also ruffus butt the head sad red.[124] wee haue a kind of teale which some fowlers call crackling teale from the noyse it maketh[125] it is almost of the bignesse of a duck coming late of the yeare & latest going away hath a russet head & neck with a dark yellow stroak about a quarter of an inch broad from the crowne to the bill winged like a teale a white streake through the middle of the wings and edges thereof the tale blackish. it may be calld Querquedula maior serotina. I send you the figure in litle of a pristis[126] w^{ch} I receaued from a yarmouth seaman. you may please to compare it w^{th} yours. the asper you mention is much like our Rough or Aspredo.

[121] Henry Oldenburg (1615-1677) was born at Bremen. Came to England about 1640, where he remained eight years. In 1653 he was sent to England from Bremen on a diplomatic mission to Cromwell. He returned to England a third time in 1660. He was an original Member of the Royal Society, and became one of its first Secretaries. A half-length portrait is in the possession of the Royal Society.

[R] A well-known town on the Danube, forty-seven miles west of Buda-Pesth, probably the Comorra of E. Browne's letter to his father, _cf._ Wilkin, i., p. 159.

[122] The Rudd (_Leuciscus erythrophthalmus_, Will.) is known in Norfolk as the Roud. Browne seems to treat it as a variety of the Roach (_Rutilus_, Willugh.), and Merrett in his second letter remarks with approval "you have very well named the Rutilus."

[123] _Fuligula cristata_ (Linnaeus), the Tufted Duck.

[124] Professor Newton suggests that Browne intended to write _Mergus cirratus_. Aldrovandus figures the head, iii., p. 283, and that of _M. longirostris_ in the preceding page. This last is copied by Jonston (fol. 47). Both birds seem to be female or immature Goosanders. Neither author has a _M. cristatus_.

[125] The above description certainly applies to the Common Teal, which was well-known to Browne (_vide supra_, p. 14), and that species is with us all the year; I cannot help thinking, however, that he had in his mind the Garganey, or Summer Teal, so called from the season of its visit to us. This species is known to the Norfolk gunners as the "Cricket Teal," and being slightly larger than the common species it might well be called by him "_Querquedula major serotina_."

[126] _See Note 55_, p. 36. It will be noticed that both this and the _Centriscus_ mentioned at p. 41 were given to Browne by a "seaman of these seas," but may possibly have been brought home as curiosities from a foreign voyage; the Saw-fish, however, mentioned at p. 36, is distinctly stated to have been "taken about Lynn." It is a matter of intense regret that the numerous drawings mentioned in these letters should have been lost.

I forgot in my last to signifie that an oter [an other?] Elk or wild swan was headed like a goose that is without any knobb at the bottome of the bill. [_See_ p. 80 and _Note 8_.]

Haue you had the duck called Clangula in Ald. [drovandus] & Johnst.[127] wee haue one heere w^{ch} answereth their descriptions exactly butt [_i.e._, except] only in the colour of their leggs & feet.

[127] Aldrovandus's figure of "Clangula" (head only, iii., p. 224) is too indefinite for determination. He says the feet are yellow, but Jonston, who refers to it under the name of _Anas platyrhincus_ describes it fairly well (p. 145). _Clangula ab alarum clangore_, Aldrov., _i.e._, "Rattlewings," an old name by which the Golden-eye was known to the Norfolk gunners.

Haue you a willock a sea fowl like a rook or crowe.[128]

[128] A local name for the Guillemot. Merrett says, in a letter dated 8th May, 1669, "The Clangula I know no more of than reading hath informed mee; [_see Note 127_] a willock I have seen brought from Greenland,[S] where they are said exceedingly to abound, but never thought either of them was found in England, and having not taken sufficient notice of the latter, crave your description of both."

[S] The Greenland of those days was Spitsbergen, where they would be met with by the Whalers, but in that case the bird would be Bruennich's Guillemot, a species not then differentiated.

No. IX.

[MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. MS. SLOANE 1847, FOL. 182.]

[_Fol. 182._] Sr I craue your pardon that I haue no sooner sent unto you. I shall be very reddie to do you service in order to your desires And shall endeavour to procure you such animalls as I haue formerly met with & any other not ordinary wch [shall _crossed out_] are to bee acquired. though many of my old assistants are dead. & sometimes they fell upon animalls, [not to bee _crossed out_] scarce to bee met with agayne. I wish I had been acquainted with your desires 3 yeares ago. for I had about fortie hanging up in my howse. wch the plague being at the next doores the person intrusted in my howse, burnt or threw away. The figure of the weasell Cray [_see Note 60_ and p. 82] was in a long paper pasted together at the ends & I make no question you will find it otherwise I would send another [the willick wee in _crossed out_] that fowl wch some call willick, [_see Note 128_] wee meet with sometimes. The last I met with was taken on the sea shoare. the head and body black the brest inclining to black headed and billd like a crowe, leggs set very backward wings short leggs set very backward (_sic_) that it move overland very badly only. it may bee a kind of cornix marina. [The latter portion very badly written and difficult to decipher.]

[_Fol. 184 verso._] That litle plant upon oyster shells [_see Note 91_] I remember I haue seen & surely is some kind of vescaria or calicularia

of what that other [was _crossed out_] electricall body was Mr. Boyle[129] showed [_smear_] by this time more tryall hath probably been made, something of jet it might consist of.

[129] The Hon. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), although deeply learned in many branches of science, was chiefly distinguished as a chemist. He took a leading part in the founding of the Royal Society, and was elected President in 1680, but from some conscientious scruple did not accept the office. Naturalists are deeply indebted to him, as he was "the first that made trial of preserving animals" in spirit (see Grew's "Musaeum Regalis Societatis" (London, 1681), p. 58).

I thank you that you were pleased to enquire of those German gentlemen concerning my sonne I receiued a letter lately from him he hath not been unmindfull of the R. Society's co[=m]ds & hath been in Hungaria in the mines of Gold, sylver & copper at Schemets, Cremitz & Neusol & desired mee to signifie so much to Mr. Oldenberg.

[The above is hastily scrawled; it was evidently indited to Merrett, as indicated by the reference to the German gentlemen, &c.; the date would therefore be some time in the year 1669. Wilkin prints it in the 1836 Edition, Vol. i., p. 408, but it is not in Bohn's reprint.]