[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 wch 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 Brünnich's Guillemot, a species not then differentiated.