NOTES ON CERTAIN FISHES AND MARINE ANIMALS FOUND IN NORFOLK.
[MS. SLOAN. 1882. FOL. 145-146. ALTERED TO 21 AND 22, AND 1830 FOL. 23-30 AND 32-38.]
[The introductory remarks, paragraphs one to three, will be found in the volume of the Sloane MSS. numbered 1882 (labelled "Notes on Generation"), on pages 145 and 146, which are altered to 21 and 22. They were placed in their present position by Wilkin, but although appropriate, there is nothing to show that they belong to the set of notes here reproduced, and they may form memoranda for the beginning of some essay never completed. The contents of the volume in question are of a very miscellaneous character, and consist of fragmentary notes, which appear to be memoranda jotted down at random.]
[Fol. 21/145.] It may well seeme no easie matter to giue any considerable account of fishes and animals of the sea wherein tis sayd that there are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts because they liue in an element wherein they are not so easely discouerable notwithstanding probable it is that after this long nauigation search of the ocean bayes creeks Estuaries and riuers that there is scarce any fish butt hath been seen by some man for the large & breathing sort thereof do sometimes discouer themselues aboue water and the other are in such numbers that some at one time or other they are discouered and taken euen the most barbarous nations being much addicted to fishing and in America and the new discouered world the people were well acquantd with fishes of sea and riuers, and the fishes thereof haue been since described by industrious writers.
Pliny seemes to short in the estimate of their number in the ocean, who recons up butt one hundred & seventie six species. butt the seas being now farther known & searched [21/145 verso] Bellonius much enlargeth.
and in his booke of Birds thus deliuereth himself allthough I think it impossible to reduce the same vnto a certain number yet I may freelie say that tis beyond the power of man to find out more than fiue hundred sorts [kinds written above] of fishes three hundred sorts of birds more than three hundred sorts of fourfoted animalls and fortie diversities of serpents.[50]
[50] This estimate of the number of species of birds and fishes existing is amusing in the light of the present knowledge of the subject. Of course any such estimate can only be approximate, and open to constant emendation; but according to a statement in the "Zoological Record" of 1896, it was believed that there were something like 386,000 described species: 2,500 of which are mammals, 12,500 birds, 4,400 reptilia and batrachia, 12,000 fishes, 50,000 mollusca, 20,000 crustacea, and 250,000 insecta; the smaller divisions I have omitted. And whereas only about 10,000 species of plants were known to Linnæus, Professor Vines in his address to the Botanical section at the Bradford meeting of the British Association, 1900, states that the approximate number of recognised plants at present existing is 175,596; but this is far short of the total of existing species. Professor Saccardo states that there are 250,000 fungi alone, and that the number of existing species in other groups would bring the total up to over 400,000.
[SLOANE MSS. 1830, FOL. 23-38.]
[Fol. 23.] Of fishes sometimes the larger sort are taken or come ashoar. A spermaceti whale[51] of 62 foote long neere Welles. another of the same kind 20 yeares before at Hunstanton. & not farre of 8 or nine came ashoare & 2 had yong ones after they were forsaken by ye water.
[51] In the muniment room at Hunstanton Hall there exists a book of MSS. notes relating to their estates, kept by Sir Hamon and Sir Nicholas le Strange, between the years 1612 and 1723. From this book Mr. Hamon le Strange has been good enough to send me an extract containing the full particulars of the stranding and disposal of a Sperm Whale 57 feet long, which came ashore on their Manor of Holme, on the 6th December, 1626, the skull of which is still in the courtyard at Hunstanton Hall.