Honoured Sir
[Fol. 106.] I am sorry I have had [diuersions above] of such necessitie, as to hinder my more sudden salute since I receiued your last. I thank you for the sight of the Sperma Ceti, and such kind of effects from [Lightning & Thunder written above] I have known and about 4 yeares ago about this towne when I with many others saw fire-balls fly & go of when they met with resistance, and one carried away the tiles and boards of a leucomb Window of my owne howse, being higher then the neighbour howses & breaking agaynst it with a report like a good canon. I set downe that occurrence in this citty & country, & haue it somewhere [in crossed out] amongst my papers, and fragments of a woman's hat that was shiuered into pieces of the bignesse of a groat. I haue still by mee a little of the spermaceti of our whale, as also the oyle & balsome wch I made with the oyle & spermaceti. Our whale was worth 500 lib. my Apothecarie got about fiftie pounds in one sale of a quantitie of sperm [[see Note 51]].
I made enumeration of the excretions of the oake which might bee obserued in england [[see Note 112]], because I conceived they would bee most obseruable if you set them downe together, not minding whether there were any addition by excrementum fungosum vermiculis scatens I only meant an vsuall excretion, soft & fungous at first & pale & sometimes couered in part with a fresh red growing close vnto the sprouts. first full of maggots in little woodden cells which afterwards turne into little reddish browne or bay flies. of the tubera indica vermiculis scatentia I send you a peece, they are as bigg as good Tennis-balls & ligneous.
The little elegant fucus [[see Note 114]] may come in as a difference of the abies, being somewhat like it, as also unto the 4 corrallium in Gerard of the sprouts whereof I could never find any sprouts wings Or leaves as in the abies whether fallen of I knowe not, though I call'd it icthyorachius or pisciculi spinam referens yet pray do you call it how you please I send you now the figure of a quercus mar. [inus] or alga which I found by the seashoare differing from the com̄on [[see Note 114]] as being denticulated & in one place there seemes to bee the beginning of some flower pod or seedvessell.
[Fol. 106 verso.] A draught of the morinellus marinus or sea doterell I now send you. the bill should not have been so black & the leggs more red, [[see Note 28]] & [the crossed out] a greater eye of dark red in the feathers of wing and back: it is lesse & differently colourd from the com̄on dotterell, wch [wee haue crossed out] cometh to us about March & September. these sea-dotterells are often shot near the sea.
A yarewhelp or barker [some words smeared out] [[see Note 39]] a marsh-bird the bill 2 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 [[see Note 117]] is a litle dark gray bird I hope to get one for you.
That whch I call'd a betulæ carptor & should rather have calld it Alni carptor [[see Note 48]] whereof I sent a rude draught. it feeds upon alder [budds mucaments or written above] seeds which grow plentifully heere & they fly in little flocks.
That [calld by some a written above] whin-bird is a kind of ox eye butt the shining yellow spot on the back of the head [[see Note 48]] is scarce to bee well imitated by a pensill.
I confess for such litle birds I am much unsatisfied on the names giuen to many by countrymen, and vncertaine what to giue them myself, or to what classes of authors cleerly to reduce them. surely there are many found among us whch are not described; & therefore such whch you cannot well reduce may (if at all) bee set downe after the exacter nomination of small birds as yet of uncertain classe or knowledge.