Febr 6 [1668-9.]
Norwich.
[MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. MS. SLOANE 1847, FOL. 198.]
[This volume contains a Miscellaneous collection, mostly letters to his son Edward, and some to "Tom." The following (as all in the volume) is on letter-sized paper, 7-1/2 × 6 in.]
Worthy Sr
[Fol. 198.] Though I writ vnto you last monday. yet hauing omitted some few things wch I thought to have mentioned I am bold to giue you this trouble so soone agayne haue you putt in a sea fish calld a bleak [[see Note 74]] a fish like an herring often taken with us and eat butt a more lanck & thinne & drye fish.
The wild swanne or elk [[see Note 8]] would not bee omitted, [here crossed out] being com̄on in hard winters & differenced from [the crossed out] our River swanns by the Aspera Arteria. [See also [pp. 80] and [83] infra.]
Fulica and cotta Anglorum [[see Note 23]] are different birds though good resemblance between them, so some doubt may bee made whether it bee to bee made a coote except you set it downe fulica nostras. & cotta Anglorum I pray consider whether that waterbird whose draught I sent in the last box & thought it might bee named Anatula or mergulus melanoleucos may not bee some gallinula. it hath some resemblance with gallina hypoleucos of Johnst Tab 32 [31] butt myne hath shorter wings by much & the bill not so long [Fol. 198 verso] & slender & shorter leggs & lesser & so may ether be calld gallina Aquatica hypoleucos nostras or hypoleucos or melanoleucos Anatula or mergulus nostras.[119]
[119] The "draught" of this bird sent to Merrett is not forthcoming. Professor Newton has been kind enough to send me the following note on this puzzling passage. "Jonston's figure (tab. 31) of Gallina hypoleucos, to which Browne says it bore some resemblance, undoubtedly represents what we know as the Common Sandpiper, Totanus hypoleucus or Actitis hypoleuca, the Fysterlin of the Germans of Jonston's time (p. 160), and Fisterlein or Pfisterlein of modern days. But there seems to be some strange confusion that cannot now be cleared, between this bird and Browne's Anatula or Mergulus melanoleucos [see [p. 76] ante], of which some years later, he sent a drawing, under the latter name, to Willughby, in whose work it is described and figured (Lat. Ed. p. 261, Engl. 343, tab. lix.), for this most certainly is the Rotche or Little Auk, Mergulus alle of modern ornithology." In the next letter ([p. 81]), Browne mentions that he encloses the draft of "Ralla aquatica" here referred to.