maceti. 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 be observed in England, because I conceived they would be most observable if you set them downe together, not minding whether 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 big 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 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 seashore, 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 7 The ring plover or sea lark, plentiful near Blakeney; charadrius hiaticula.-G. 8 Names of two distinct species, the godwit or yarwhelp, scolopax agocephala, and the spotted redshank or barker, S. Totanus. The description agrees with neither. 9 Probably the beam-bird, or flycatcher; Muscicapa Grisola.-G. ' Possibly the golden-crested wren, Motacilla Regulus. 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 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 finnefooted; 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,2 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.3 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 nerite 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 inquire 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. 2 This must be the smew, mergus albellus: which comes on the coast of Norfolk in hard winters.-G. 3 The pin-tailed duck.-G. 4 Several ospreys have been taken near Cromer.-G. 5 Erne ?-The white-tailed or cinereous eagle; falco albicilla. Worthy deare sir, if I can do anything farther which may be serviceable unto you, you shall ever readily command my endeavours; who am, sir, your humble and very respectfull servant, THOMAS BROWNE. Dr. Browne to Dr. Merritt, Feb. 12, 1668-9. WORTHY SIR,-Though I writ unto you last Monday, yet having omitted some few things which I thought to have mentioned, I am bold to give you this trouble so soone agayne. Have you putt in a sea fish called a bleak, a fish like a herring, often taken with us and eat, but a more lanck and thinne and drye fish? The wild swan or elk would not bee omitted, being common in hard winters and differenced from our river swans, by the aspera arteria. Fulica and cotta Anglorum are different birds though good resemblance between them, so some doubt may bee made whether it bee to bee named a coot, except you set it downe Fulica nostras and cotta Anglorum. I pray consider whether that water-bird whose draught I sent in the last box, and thought it might bee named anatula or mergulus melanoleucos, &c., may not bee some gallinula, it hath some resemblance with gallina hypoleucos of Johnst. tab. 32, butt myne hath shorter wings by much, and the bill not so long and slender, and shorter legs and lesser, and so may either be called gallina aquatica hypoleucos nostras, or hypoleucos anatula, or mergulus nostras. Tis much there should bee no icon of rallas or ralla aquatica; I have a draught of some, and they are found among us. THOMAS BRowNE. The vescaria I sent is like that you mention, if not the same, the common funago resembleth the husk of peas, this of barley when the flower is mouldred away. Sir Robert Paston to Dr. Browne.-Oxnead, April the 5th, 1669. HONORED SIR,-On Saturday night last, going into my laboratorie, I found som of the adrop (that had beene run foure or five times in the open ayre, and euerie time itts ætheriall attracted spiritts drawne of from itt) congealed to an hard candied substance, the which I ordered my man to grind in a marble to attenuate itts parts, and make itt more fitt for attraction, and comming in in the operation, I chid my servant for grinding itt where white lead had before beene ground, for I found it from itts fuscye red color, looke licke white lead ground with ; oyle, butt more lustrous, and he to convince that the stone was cleane, ground som of the same before my face on a tile, with another muller, which came to the same color and viscositye. I must confess that gave me a transport to find the ayre had worked such an effect. Uppon about half a pound of this I cohobated' som of itts ætheriall spiritt, which itt nottwithstanding tinged red, and I am now drawing itt of againe, for I think I had better have exposed itt in itts consistence to the open ayre againe, though I find itt hard to run into anye thin substance yett perhapps the viscous matter may be more pretious, and by often grinding, exposing, and distilling, itt may att last goe a white and spiss water, such an one as philosophers looke after, or att least be fitt to receiue, and be acuated with, the......and saline parts of the ætheriall spiritt, when that operation comes in hand if itt affords us anye that way. I haue given Mr. Henshaw an accompt of this, which I beleeve will please him, and I desire your advice in the point how to proceed upon't, for certainlye if these matters have anye truth in them, wee are upon the brink of a menstruum to dissolve mettalls in generall. The keys are not yett fitted to your table, butt I hope will be by Thursday; my service to your ladye, and excuse this relation with that generous condescention that allowes you to consider even the lowest thinges.-Sir, I am, your humble servant, ROBERT PASTON.? The Earl of Yarmouth to Sir Thomas Browne.-Septembr. the 10th, 1674. HONORED SIR, The great ciuility of your letter is an obligation I haue som time layne under, adiourning my returne on purpose that I might haue som thinge to discourse. My friend, Mr. Henshaw (who is lately returned from his employmt. of envoye extraordinary in Denmark), and has brought over with him many curiositys; the principle of which lyes in the Unicornes horne, in which he has as much as he prises att foure or five hundred pounds, beeing three very long hornes of the fish called puach and seuerall peeces; many rarityes of amber; great store of succinum beeing found about those shores, and a very large peece he gave mee, which was found in the earth many miles from the sea; he has one piece in which a drop either of water or quicksilver is included, which turnes round as the amber is moved, and severall with insects in them. He confesseth he had licke to have beene cheated by a merchant with a piece that had somwhat included in itt, which he found to bee rosin, Distilled again. 7 Created Earl of Yarmouth, Jan. 1673. 6 Acidified. 8 Amber. and wee have a way to counterfeitt itt very handsomely, which he has taught mee, and, if wee had a workman to help us, might doe many pretty thinges of that nature. He has seuerall peeces of the mineralls of Dronthem; he has brought over a vegetable called the alga saccharifica, which, when he putt itt in the box, had nothing on the leaves, and in bringing has attracted a matter in tast and feeling licke sugar. He tells mee the former King of Denmark was curious in all manner of rarities, and has one of the best collections of that kind in the world, as allsoe a most famous library of choyse collected bookes, butt this king's delights are in horses, and the discipline of an army, of which he has thirty thousand brauely equipped, which Mr. Henshaw saw encamped att the rendevous att Colding, in Juteland; allsoe a potent navy ready to assist those that will pay the most for them. The king, att his comming away, gave him considerable presents to the value of betweene five and six hundred pounds, and has written such a character of him that I feare may invite him thither agayne, if our king has any occasion to send one. He was there acquainted with the principle physitian, one Bouchius, a great louer of chymistry, butt I thinke nott much experienced in itt, who assumed that leafe gold by continuall grinding for som fourteen dayes, and then putt into a retort in nudo igne yields some dropps of a blood red licquor, and the same gold exposed to the ayre, and ground againe, doth toties quoties yield the same; this is now under the experiment of a physitian in this towne, to whome I gave the process to undertake the tryall, and shall bee able shortly to give you an accompt of itt. I have little leysure and less convenience to try anything heere, yett my owne salt will sett mee on work, having now arrived to this that I can with foure drachmes of itt dissolve a drachme of leafe gold into an high tincture, which by all the art I have is nott seperable from the menstruum which stands fluid, and is both before and after the solution of the gold as sweet almost as sugar, soe farr is itt from any corrosive nature. I am gooing to seale up two glasses, one of the menstruum with gold dissolved in itt, and another of the menstruum per se, and to putt them in an athanor, to see if they will putrify, or what alteration will happen. I have att Oxned seene this salt change as blacke as inke, I must, att the lowest, have an excelent aurum potabile, and if the signes wee are to judge by in Sendivogius' description bee true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man have that which will dissolve gold as warme water doth ice, you have that out of which gold was first made in the earth. My solution is perfectly agreeable to itt; dissolves itt without hissing, bubble, or noyse, and doth itt in frigido: that which encourages mee is that I shall make my lump with spiritt of |