"Some original drawing of Towns, Castles, Antiquities, Medals &c. by Dr. Edward Browne in his Travels & presented by his Father Sir Thomas Browne. Who hath write upon sevll of them what they are."
The above is the inscription written on the fly-leaf of this volume, which I hoped might have contained some drawings of birds or fishes by Sir Thomas Browne, but there is nothing in it of interest from a Natural History point of view. In Wilkin's Catalogue of the MSS. (Vol. iv., p. 476) it is described as "a collection of very curious drawings (some coloured) of public buildings, habits, fishes, mines, rocks, tombs, and other antiquities, observed by Sir Thos. and Dr. Edward Browne in their travels," but there are no fishes, birds, or other animals in the volume.
APPENDIX D.
Draft of a letter from Sir Thomas Browne to his daughter Elizabeth, enclosing two pictures of a Stork. This and the next letter are in the Bodleian Library (MS. Rawl. D. cviii.)
[Fol. 70.] This is a picture of the stork [[see Note 14]] I mentiond in my last. butt it is different from the com̄on stork by red lead colourd leggs and bill[132] and the feet hath not vsuall sharp poynted clawes butt resembling a mans nayle, such as Herodotus discribeth the white Ibis of Ægypt to haue. The ends of the wings are black & when shee doth not spred them they make all the lower part of the back looke black, butt the fethers on the back vnder them are white as also the tayle. it fed upon snayles & froggs butt a toad being offered it would not touch it. the tongue is about half an inch long. the quills of the wing are as bigge or bigger then a swans quills. it was shott by the seaside & the wing broake. Some there were who tooke it for an euell omen saying If storks come ouer into England, god send that a com̄onwealth doth not come after.[U]
[132] Browne evidently was not very familiar with the Stork, which is not surprising, seeing that it is a very rare bird in Britain; it may be that he had only seen the bird in its immature stage, for the "red-lead" hue of the legs is very characteristic of the adult bird. [[See also Note 14], [p. 10.]]
[U] In reference to the Dutch fable of those days that Storks would only inhabit republican countries.