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Hirudines marini, or sea-leeches.

Vermes marini, very large worms, digged a yard deep out of the sands at ebb, for bait. It is known where they are to be found by a little flat over them, on the surface of the sand. As also vermes in tubulis testacei. Also tethya, or sea-dogs; some whereof resemble fritters. The vesicaria marina also, and fanago, sometimes very large; conceived to proceed from some testaceous animals, and particularly from the purpura; but ours more probably from other testaceous, we have not met with any large purpura upon this coast.

Many river fishes also and animals. Salmon no common fish in our rivers, though many are taken in the Ouse; in the Bure or North river; in the Waveney or South river; in the Norwich river but seldom, and in the winter. But four years ago fifteen were taken at Trowse mill, at Christmas, whose mouths were stuck with small worms or horse leeches, no bigger than fine threads. Some of these I kept in water three months. If a few drops of blood were put to the water, they would in a little time look red. They sensibly grew bigger than I first found them, and were killed by a hard frost freezing the water. Most of our salmon have a recurved piece of flesh in the end of the lower jaw, which, when they shut their mouths, deeply enters the upper, as Scaliger hath noted in some.

The rivers, lakes, and broads, abound in the lucius or pikes of a very large size, where also is found the brama or bream, large and well tasted. The tinca or tench; the aulecula, roach; as also rowds and dare or dace; perca or perch, great and small; whereof such as are taken in Breydon, on this side Yarmouth, in the mixed water, make a dish dainty; and, I think, scarce to be bettered in England. But the blea, the chubbe, the barble, to be found in divers other rivers in England I have not observed in these. As also fewer minnows than in many other rivers.

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The trutta or trout; the gammarus or crawfish ; but scarce in our rivers; but frequently taken in the Bure or North river, and in the several branches thereof. And very remarkable large crawfishes to be found in the river which runs by Castleacre and Nerford.

The aspredo perca minor, and probably the cernua of Cardan, commonly called a ruff; in great plenty in Norwich

river, and even in the stream of the city; which though Camden appropriates unto this city, yet they are also found in the rivers of Oxford and Cambridge.

Lampetra, lampreys, great and small, found plentifully in Norwich river, and even in the city, about May; whereof some are very large; and, well cooked, are counted a dainty bit collared up, but especially in pies.

Mustela fluviatilis or eel-pout, to be had in Norwich river, and between it and Yarmouth, as also in the rivers of Marshland; resembling an eel and a cod; a very good dish; and the liver whereof well answers the commendations of the ancients.

Gudgeons or funduli fluviatiles; many whereof may be taken within the river in the city.

Capitones fluviatiles or miller's thumb; pungitias fluviatilis or stanticles. Aphia cobites fluviatilis or loches. In Norwich river, in the runs about Heveningham Heath, in the North river and streams thereof.

Of eels, the common eel, and the glot, which hath somewhat a different shape in the bigness of the head and is affirmed to have young ones often found within it; and we have found an uterus in the same, somewhat answering the icon thereof in Senesinus.

Carpiones, carp; plentiful in ponds, and sometimes large ones in broads. Two of the largest I ever beheld were taken in Norwich river.

Though the woods and drylands abound with adders and vipers, yet are there few snakes about our rivers or meadows; more to be found in Marshland. But ponds and plashes abound in lizards or swifts.

The gryllotalpa or fen cricket, common in fenny places; but we have met with them also in dry places, dunghills, and churchyards, of this city.

Besides horseleeches and periwinkles, in plashes and standing waters, we have met with vermes setacei or hard worms: but could never convert horsehairs into them by laying them in water. As also the great hydrocantharus or black shining water-beetle, the forficula, squilla, corculum, and notonecton, that swimmeth on its back.

Camden reports that in former time there have been beavers in the river of Cardigan in Wales. This we are too

sure of, that the rivers, great broads, and carrs, afford great store of otters with us; a great destroyer of fish, as feeding but from the vent downwards; not free from being a prey itself; for their young ones have been found in buzzards' nests. They are accounted no bad dish by many; are to be made very tame; and in some houses have served for turnspits.

ON THE OSTRICH.1

[MS. SLOAN. 1830, fol. 10, 11; 1847.]

THE Ostrich hath a compounded name in Greek and Latin -Struthio-Camelus, borrowed from a bird and a beast, as being a feathered and biped animal, yet in some ways like a camel; somewhat in the long neck; somewhat in the foot; and, as some imagine, from a camel-like position in the part of generation.

It is accounted the largest and tallest of any winged and feathered fowl; taller than the gruen or cassowary. This ostrich, though a female, was about seven feet high, and some of the males were higher, either exceeding or answerable unto the stature of the great porter unto king Charles the First. The weight was a2 in grocer's scales.

Whosoever shall compare or consider together the ostrich and the tomineio, or humbird, not weighing twelve grains, may easily discover under what compass or latitude the creation of birds hath been ordained.

The head is not large, but little in proportion to the whole body. And, therefore, Julius Scaliger, when he mentioned birds of large heads (comparatively unto their bodies),

1 On the ostrich.] This was drawn up for his son Edward, to be delivered in the course of his lectures. It occurs in the middle of the paper on Birds; but evidently was inserted by mistake in the binding; it is written on larger paper.

2 a ..] Utterly undecypherable in the original.

named the sparrow, the owl, and the woodpecker; and, reckoning up birds of small heads, instanceth in the hen, the peacock, and the ostrich.*

The head is looked upon by discerning spectators to resemble that of a goose rather than any kind of orpoñłos, or passer and so may be more properly called cheno-camelus, or ansero-camelus.

There is a handsome figure of an ostrich in Mr. Willoughby's and Ray's Ornithologia: another in Aldrovandus and Jonstonus, and Bellonius; but the heads not exactly ageeing. "Rostrum habet exiguum, sed acutum," saith Jonstoun; un long bec et poinctu," saith Bellonius; men describing such as they have an opportunity to see, and perhaps some the ostriches of very different countries, wherein, as in some other birds, there may be some variety.

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In Africa, where some eat elephants, it is no wonder that some also feed upon ostriches. They flay them with their feathers on, which they sell, and eat the flesh. But Galen and physicians have condemned that flesh, as hard and indigestible. The emperor Heliogabalus had a fancy for the brains, when he brought six hundred ostriches' heads to one supper, only for the brains' sake; yet Leo Africanus saith that he ate of young ostriches among the Numidians with a good gust; and, perhaps, boiled, and well cooked, after the art of Apicius, with peppermint, dates, and other good things, they might go down with some stomachs.

I do not find that the strongest eagles, or best-spirited hawks, will offer at these birds; yet, if there were such gyrfalcons as Julius Scaliger saith the duke of Savoy and Henry, king of Navarre, had, it is like they would strike at them, and, making at the head, would spoil them, or so disable them, that they might be taken.†

If these had been brought over in June, it is, perhaps, * See Scaliger's Exercitations.

+ See Scaliger's Exercitations, and in his Comment. on Arist. De Historia Animal.

3 as hard and indigestible.] "And, therefore, when, according to Lampridius, the emperor Heliogabalus forced the Jews to eat ostriches, it was a meat not only hard of digestion to their stomachs, but also to their consciences, as being a forbidden meat food.”—Addition from MS. Sloan. 1847.

likely we might have met with eggs in some of their bellies, whereof they lay very many: but they are the worst of eggs for food, yet serviceable unto many other uses in their country; for, being cut transversely, they serve for drinking cups and skull-caps; and, as I have seen, there are large circles of them, and some painted and gilded, which hang up in Turkish mosques, and also in Greek churches. They are preserved with us for rarities; and, as they come to be common, some use will be found of them in physic, even as of other eggshells and other such substances.

When it first came into my garden, it soon ate up all the gilliflowers, tulip-leaves, and fed greedily upon what was green, as lettuce, endive, sorrell; it would feed on oats, barley, peas, beans; swallow onions; eat sheep's lights and livers. Then you mention what you know more.4

When it took down a large onion, it stuck awhile in the gullet, and did not descend directly, but wound backward behind the neck; whereby I might perceive that the gullet turned much; but this is not peculiar unto the ostrich ; but the same hath been observed in the stork, when it swallows down frogs and pretty big bits.

It made sometimes a strange noise; had a very odd note, especially in the morning, and, perhaps, when hungry.

According to Aldrovandus, some hold that there is an antipathy between it and a horse, which an ostrich will not endure to see or be near; but, while I kept it, I could not confirm this opinion; which might, perhaps, be raised because a common way of hunting and taking them is by swift horses.

It is much that Cardanus should be mistaken with a great part of men, that the coloured and dyed feathers of ostriches were natural; as red, blue, yellow, and green; whereas, the natural colours in this bird were white and greyish. Of [the] fashion of wearing feathers in battles or wars by men, and women, see Scaliger, Contra Cardan. Exercitat. 220.

If wearing of feather-fans should come up again, it might much increase the trade of plumage from Barbary. Bellonius saith he saw two hundred skins with the feathers on in one shop of Alexandria.

Then you mention, &c.] This must be considered as spoken "aside" to his son.