one and the same Bird. Neither do I much matter the descriptions of the Ancients who in delivering the notes of Animals are wont to be less curious and exact But whatever the Ancients called the Sea-Eagle certain it is that the title of Sea-Eagle may be very fitly attributed to this Bird. For if we admit the Bald Buzzard for the Sea-Eagle which to speak the truth agrees better to the descriptions of the Ancients we take away all note of distinction between Eagles and Hawks which as we said before consists only in difference of magnitude The Ossifrage then or Sea-Eagle is thus described by Aldrovandus From the point of the Beak to the end of the train or Talons for the ends of both when extended were coincident it was three feet and four Inches long From tip to tip of the Wings stretched out nine spans broad It weighed eleven pound The Bill was very hooked so that the hooked part alone was an Inch long the whole two Inches broad and an hand-breadth long of a blackish or dusky horn colour somewhat approaching to a dark blue The Tongue was very like to a mans with a broad top and hooked hard and horny Appendices on both sides tied down to the lower mandible by a thin Membrane where it regards the chin a horny Membrane compasses the end or tip of it The lower mandible was hollowed like a channel I suppose he means the sides of it the edges or borders of which channel enter the Palate on both sides and are enclosed within its edges In the middle of the Palate is a chink by which a pituitous humour distils from the head The head and all the neck are cloathed with long narrow and rigid feathers From the Chin hang down small feathers like hairs imitating a beard whence perchance by Pliny and also Bellonius it is denominated the bearded Eagle And I from that note chiefly suppose it to be called Harpe by Oppian The feathers of the whole body singly are particoloured and that with three colours whitish duskish and ferrugineous The flag-feathers of the Wings are almost wholly black something tending to Chesnut The twelve feathers of the Train have little or nothing of red but are only spotted with black and white viz. whitish on the outside dusky on the inner The two middlemost being besprinkled promiscuously with white spots are for the most part dusky The ends or tips of all are black The feathers growing on the rump which immediately cover these are almost wholly white sprinkled with a little black save that their tips are black Their Legs are almost wholly covered with dusky feathers somewhat inclining to fulvous so that there is only two inches to the feet remaining bare Besides the feathers the whole body underneath is covered with a white and soft down as it were a delicate fleece after the same manner as the skin of a Swan The lower part of the Legs which as we said for the space of two Inches is destitute of feathers and the feet are of a deep yellow The toes extended are a full span the length of the middlemost is equal to a Palm The Talons were very black in so much that they shone again and so hooked that they did exactly represent a Semicircle They observed this proportion one to another the hindmost being the biggest was two Inches long the first of the fore ones lesser than it but bigger than the middlemost and the last the least of all The substance of the Talons was inwardly white and bony covered over outwardly with a dusky bark The leg and foot were for the most part covered with round scales of unequal bigness but the fore-part of the Leg and upper part of the toes had Semicircular Tables like the Chrysaetos Clusius sent to Aldrovandus the Picture of this Bird drawn in colours to the life by the title of the Sea-Eagle writing thereof in this manner This Haliaeetus which our Countrymen living in the Sea-coast call Zee Aren that is Sea-Eagle was shot the last Winter c. That this Eagle feeds only on Fish I my self can witness for in the stomach thereof dissected we found nothing but Fish some remaining yet entire some half consumed c. That this Bird is the same which our Seamen and Fowlers call the Osprey and affirm to have one flat or webbed foot to swim withal after the manner of a Goose or other Water-fowl the other being divided after the manner of other Birds of prey I do not at all doubt But what is reported concerning the feet is most certainly false and fabulous although by some affirming it with great confidence even the best Naturalists have been deceived among the rest Aldrovandus himself not daring rashly to contradict Albertus Magnus English men and Burgundians eye-witnesses For saith he the Natives of each Country are most likely best to know what things are peculiar to their own Country either by Land or Sea Well I my self am an English man yet have I never yet met with any credible person who would affirm himself to be an Eye-witness of this matter although the Vulgar be so confidently persuaded of it that scarce any body doubts its truth What gave the first occasion and rise to this Error was I suppose a presumption of the necessity of such a structure of the feet For whereas the Mariners and Fishermen did see and observe this Bird much to frequent the Sea and great Lakes of water and to prey upon Fish yea sometimes to fly forth very far from Land so that it hath been often seen out at Sea a hundred Leagues distant from shore flying up and down over the water and intent upon fishing they imagined it altogether necessary that it should be furnished with one flat foot for swimming and another cloven for striking catching and carrying away of Fish It being one would think impossible that a bird should abide upon the Wing so long without rest But that even small birds short-winged and less fit by far for flight than Eagles will venture to fly over wide Seas is evident in those we call birds of passage And who knows but where those Fowl are usually seen there may be some Rocks in the Sea not far off on which they may rest themselves But for the same reason this conceit was first started it was readily entertained and without examination greedily believed Not less fabulous is that which is reported of the oyl or fat which this bird hath in her rump and which hanging in the air she lets fall drop by drop into the water by the force whereof the Fishes being stupefied and as it were Planet-strucken become destitute of all motion and so suffer themselves without difficulty to be taken though some are so vain as to put Oyl of Osprey into their receipts or prescriptions for taking Fishes by the smell whereof the Fishes being allured rather than stupefied by
to the Claws was a quarter of a yard Of its guts seven quarters It s Bill and Feet were brown braunlecht The Picture represents them of a dark purple The colour of the whole body was grey grau I take this to be no other than the great grey Gull described in the third place but then the colour of the Legs is mistaken §. VII * Aldrovands Cepphus IT 's not like a Gull in any thing save the Bill and shape of the Legs and Feet for in other things it rather resembles a Duck. From the Bill to the end of the Tail it is a span and half long and because it hath abundance of feathers it seems to be corpulent whereas the matter is nothing so The Bill is of a moderate both length and thickness of a horn colour on the sides of the Mandibles red at the tip which is hooked black The Eyes little for the most part red encompassed with a white circle The Head which is something less than in Gulls together with the Neck Breast Belly Thighs and Rump are variegated with white and brown spots with a mixture of bay and yellow The Wings are black the ends of the feathers being yellowish The greater feathers of the Tail are also black The Legs and shanks greenish the Feet and membrane connecting the Toes dusky This Bird is as yet to us unknown and therefore we have no more to add concerning it What the Ancients have left us concerning the Cepphus see in Aldrovand Turner thinks that bird which we call the Pewit to be the Cepphus of the Ancients as we have already told the Reader §. VIII The brown Tern Larus cinereus minor Aldrov called by Baltner Ein Kessler IT is about half so big as Bellonius his ash-coloured Mew for it scarce exceeds a span in length On the Back and Wings it is of an ash-colour but far deeper than in that inclining to a blue The quil-feathers of the Wings are on the outside cinereous but on the inside black on both sides at the ends white The Bill is slender or small for the proportion of the body a little bending and black The crown of the head towards the hind-part black The Feet Legs and membranes uniting the Toes of a Saffron-colour The Claws black All the other parts purely white This is the bird which Leon. Baltner describes and paints under the title of Ein Kessler of the bigness of a Blackbird with long Wings short legs a small Head and black for the most part the Back and quills of the Wings brown the covert-feathers cinereous yellow or Saffron-coloured Feet a black sharp Bill moderately bending It flies up and down continually over the water in pursuit of Gnats and other water-Insects It feeds also upon fish This is also the brown Tern of Mr. Johnson if I be not mistaken whose underside is all white the upper brown The Wings partly brown partly ash-coloured The Head black The Tail not forked The Birds of this kind are gregarious flying in companies §. IX * Marggraves Brasilian Gull called Guaca-guacu Gaviota of the Portughese IT is of the bigness of a common Hen hath a streight long thick yellow Bill It s Head above is covered with black feathers as are also the hinder moieties of the Wings and Tail The Throat whole Neck Breast and lower Belly and fore-part of the Wings are white It lays its Eggs in the sand which are like to a Hens for sigure bigness and colour They are indeed well tasted but the flesh of the Bird is nothing worth CHAP. III. The lesser Gulls with forked Tails §. I. The Sea-Swallow Hirundo marina Sterna of Turner Speurer of Baltner THe weight of this Bird was near five ounces Its length from Bill to Tail six teen inches its breadth from Wings end to Wings end thirty two inches It is a small bird slender and long-bodied Hath a forked Tail whence it got the name of a Swallow A black crown the black being terminated by a line drawn from the Nosthrils through the Eyes to the Neck so that above the Eyes the Head is black under the Eyes white The Cheeks Chin lower Belly underside of the Wings are all white The Breast hath something of cinereous mingled The Rump is white The Back and upper side of the Wings are of a dark ash-colour Each Wing hath twenty nine quils the outmost ten whereof have their outer Webs running out into sharp points the rest their inner The exteriour Web of the first or outmost feather is black the shaft white and of a notable thickness The tips of the following till the tenth and the inside of all white and moreover half the interiour Web of the four or five foremost The Tail is composed of twelve feathers the outmost being half a foot long and better and having their exteriour Webs from cinereous inclining to black The two middlemost scarce three inches long and white The rest having their outer Webs cinereous their inner white It s Bill is long almost streight black at the tip else red It s mouth is red within Its Tongue sharp Its Legs red the back-toe small The fore-toes web'd together as far as the very Claws The craw was large out of which we took a Gudgeon The Gizzard full of fish-bones The Guts twenty inches long The blind guts very short These Birds flock together and build and breed on Islands uninhabited near to the Sea-shores many together in the same quarter In the Island of Caldey adjacent to the Southern shore of Wales they call them Spurres a name as appears by Baltner common to them with the Germans about Strasburgh and that little Islet where they build Spurre Island In other places of England they are called Scrays a name I conceive framed in imitation of their cry For they are extraordinarily clamorous In the Northern parts they call them Terns whence Turner calls them in Latine Sternae because they frequent Lakes and great Pools of water which in the North of England are called Tarns They lay three or four Eggs either upon the bare ground or in a Nest made of Reeds Their Eggs are like the great Gulls Eggs though much less The Young are also spotted with black like theirs They fly up and down over the water intent upon their prey and when they espy a fish they cast themselves down with wonderful swiftness into the Water and catching it up fly away with it in a trice They frequent Rivers far remote from the Sea as for example the Rhene about Strasburgh where they were taken described and painted by Leonard Baltner by the title of Ein Speurer who tells us also that they build in gravelly and sandy places by the banks of the River so that if it happen there be a floud in their breeding time their Eggs are marred and Nests destroyed This Bird for its long Wings small Feet forked Tail continual flying and finally for the figure of its whole body is
reported of the Eagle Answ What is reported of the Eagle in this kind I doubt not but it is false Neither do I think that any bird casts its Bill by age Wherefore that Translation of the fifth verse of Psalm 103. which in the common English metre runs thus Like as the Eagle casts her bill whereby her age reneweth ought to be mended For many of the more ignorant sort have hereby been imposed upon believing these to be the words or sense of the Scripture in this place whereas there is no such thing in the Text mentioned as the Eagles casting her Bill the words being only these Thy youth shall be renewed like the Eagles But that the hook of the Bill may and sometimes doth in Eagles and other birds by extreme old age grow so immoderately as to hinder their feeding I deny not For the Goldsinch we mentioned before is hereof a sufficient instance 4. How many Birds have an angular Appendix as it were a Tooth on each side the upper Chap of their Bills as the Kestrel the Hobby the Butcher-bird c 5. The Commisture of the legs or tines of the lower Mandible in what birds it is round in what angular 6. Whether the Eyes of all Birds of the same Species are always of the same colour Answ The Irides of the Eyes in young and old birds do often differ and sometimes also in the Cocks and Hens But whether in old birds of the same Sex they differ or not remains to be enquired I suppose they do not 7. Whether in Birds that want the Crop that defect be always supplied by the largeness of the Gullet Which as we said in many birds of this kind immediately above the stomach is dilated into a kind of bag or ante-stomach 8. Whereas the single blind gut situate about the middle of the guts is nothing else but the passage deriving the Yolk into the guts contracted it were worthy enquiry whether there be not some external passage terminated in the blind guts commonly know and so called as well in Beasts as in Birds And seeing that in many birds the Appendices are very small and seem to be of no use to the birds when grown up let it be enquired whether they are greater in Embryon-birds and what use they may be of to them 9. Whether the single blind gut forementioned be always reflected toward the tail In what birds the ends of the * Appendices are reflected in what birds the * Appendices are striate Whether below the * Appendices the gut be proportionably larger than above according to the bigness of the * Appendices Whether of the * Appendices the one is usually shorter than the other And if so whether the right or the left 10. Whether some Birds have a double cluster of Eggs as viviparous Animals have two Ovaria usually called and mistaken for Testicles or whether all have only a single one 11. Whether Birds when ready to lay can detain their Eggs if their nests happen not to be ready or be by any accident destroyed Or whether they sometimes fall from them against their wills 12. Whereas some Birds for example Pigeons lay only two Eggs at a time whether of the one of those is always bred a Cock of the other a Hen-bird Answ It doth most commonly so fall out yet sometimes two Males sometimes two Females are excluded together 13. To make trial whether Eggs in England may be hatched by an artificial heat 14. To observe what colours are most frequent in Birds and in what parts as for example the rumps of many birds are of the same colour viz. Larks Thrushes Sparrows c. 15. What Birds wag their tails oft as Water-wagtails Blackbirds Morehens Tringae c. One of the two middle feathers of the tail when it is closed covers the other enquire whether the right or left feather lies oftnest uppermost or either of them indifferently as it happens 16. In what kind of Birds there are more Cocks usually bred as in Ruffs in what more Hens as in Poultry 17. What Birds build upon the ground as all of the Poultry kind Lapwings and in general all such as run and feed themselves so soon as they are hatcht being covered with a thick down What build on trees and in hedges as the greatest part of Birds What in the water as Morehens What Birds sit always on the ground never lighting upon trees What perch upon trees 18. What Birds hide themselves or change places whether in Winter or in Summer 19. What would become of Nightingales Cuckows c. in Winter and of Fieldfares c. in Summer if they were kept in Cages and carefully tended fed and cherished 20. How cometh it to pass that the most vehement cold in Winter-time if they have but food enough doth not congeal or mortifie the tender bodies of small birds 21. Whether the age of Pheasants Hawks c. may be known by the cross bars in their tails 22. How many Birds have white feathers under their tails How many have bristles under their chin at the corners of their mouths or about their nosthrils 23. What Birds either terrestrial or aquatic have two cross lines in their wings 24. How many Birds have the exterior vanes of their flag-feathers broader than the interiour CHAP. VII Of some remarkable Isles Cliffs and Rocks about England where Sea-fowl do yearly build and breed in great numbers MAny Water but especially Sea-fowl do yearly breed and bring forth young in great companies either in high Rocks or Desart and less inhabited Islands in the Sea or on high and steep Cliffs by the Sea-side The more noted and famous places of this kind about England are 1. The Basse Island in the great Bay called Edinburgh-Frith or Forth not far from the shore which Dr. Harvey doth not less truly than elegantly describe in these words There is a little Island the Scots call it Basse standing very high environed with steep and craggy Cliffs one might more truly and properly call it a huge Rock than an Island not much more than a mile in compass In the months of May and June the surface of this Island is almost wholly covered with Nests Eggs and young Birds so that for the multitude of them one can scarce any where freely set ones foot and such a number of Birds there is flying over ones head that like Clouds they cover the Skie and take away the sight of the Sun making such a noise and din with their cries that people talking together near hand can searce hear one another If from thence as from a lofty Tower or high Precipice you look down upon the Sea underneath you shall see it every way covered with an infinite number of Birds of divers sorts swimming up and down intent upon their prey In like manner as Pools of water in some places in the Spring time are seen over-spread with Frogs or the open hills and steep mountains are beheld at
commonly and not undeservedly called the Sea-Swallow §. II. The lesser Sea-Swallow Larus Piscator of Gesner and Aldrov Ein Fischerlin of Baltner GEsner describes this Bird thus They say that it is white with a black crown It is lesser than the ash-coloured Gull with a black head like the Sterna Bill and Feet of a pale dusky colour Of swift flight and when it catches fish plunging it self into the water which the ash-coloured Gull doth not Leonard Baltner describes his Fischerlin after this manner It is a very little kind of Speurer that is Sea-Swallow even less than a Blackbird It hath long ash-coloured feathers Bill and Feet of a Saffron-colour A black crown The neither side of the body all white in like manner the Tail It preys upon small fishes whence it had its name Its guts are half a yard long The Females are less than the Males Their flesh is good to eat The Picture represents the Tail forked and the point of the Bill black The greater quil-feathers of the Wings likewise black It differs from the greater Sea-Swallow chiefly in bigness and the colour of the Bill and Feet Mr. Johnson thus briefly describes it It hath the Wings Tail and swiftness of a Swallow A red Bill a black crown brown Legs a forked Tail six inches long In the colour of the Legs he agrees with Gesner but perchance the colour may vary with Age or differ in the Sexes §. III. The Scare-crow Larus niger Gesneri Aldrov Ein Brandvogel or Megvogel of Baltner THis small Gull hath black Bill Head Neck Breast Belly and Back as far as one can judge by the Picture ash-coloured Wings reaching beyond the Tail The Legs have a light dash of red About Strasburgh it is called Megvogelin that is the May-fowl because saith Baltner it comes to them in the month of May. Baltner describes and paints it under the title of Brand-vogel It is saith he of the bigness of a Blackbird hath long Wings small and short Legs and Feet partly cloven a black Bill of which colour is also the whole body They fly in flocks for the most part twenty or thirty together They catch Gnats and other water-Insects Their flesh is good to eat This is Isuppose the same with that which Mr. Johnson saith they in the North call the Scare-Crow and thus briefly describes It cannot abide the presence of men Its Head Neck and Belly are black its Wings ash-coloured its Tail a little forked Its feet small and red The Male hath a white spot under his chin §. IV. Our black cloven-footed Gull IT is less than the Sea-Swallow In length from the tip of the Bill to the end of the Tail ten inches in breadth from Wings end to Wings end twenty four The Bill from the point to the angles of the mouth is an inch and half long sharp-pointed and black The Tongue sharp and slit at the end The Head black The back and upper surface of the Wings of a dark cinereous The Throat and Breast black But the feathers of the lower belly under the Tail pure white The number of quils in each Wing twenty seven The Tail forked made up of twelve feathers the outmost 3⅛ inches long the middlemost two and an half The outmost on each side is all white all the rest ash-coloured The Legs are bare up to the middle of the second joynt The Feet small of a reddish black colour The Claws black The hind-toe little the middle fore-toe the longest and next to that the outmost The membrane connecting the inmost and middle toes in the inmost is extended to the Claw in the middle toe proceeds not beyond the first joynt so the upper bone of the Toe is altogether free and loose That which joyns the outmost and middle Toes though it begins in both from the very Claws yet is it depressed in the middle and as it were hollowed into the form of a Crescent whose horns are the Toes The Claw of the middle toe on the inside is thinned into an edge Its cry is hardly distinguishable from that of the Sea-Swallow It builds among the Reeds and lays three or four Eggs like to those of other Gulls of a sordid green spotted with black compassed with a broad black girdle about the middle The blind Guts as in the rest of this kind are very short In the Stomach were Beetles Maggots c. This Bird comes very near to the black cloven-footed Gull of Aldrovand But its Tail is forked of which remarkable note he makes no mention which sure could not have escaped him if it had been in the birds he described It frequents Rivers Mears and Plashes of Water far from the Sea §. V. * Aldrovands cloven-footed Gull with longer Wings THis Bird on the Wings and Breast is all ash-coloured hath very large Wings exceeding the Tail three inches in length and towards the end black The Tail is short and cinereous The part under the Tail white The Toes are of a good length and armed with notable Claws the Legs short both black The Eyes very black as is the whole Head and also the Neck and the Bill beside which is pretty long and a little crooked at the end §. VI. * The other cloven-footed Gull of Aldrovand with shorter Wings IT is almost of the same bigness with the precedent but hath far shorter Wings and on the contrary a much longer Tail Its bigness is equal to that of a Blackbird its colour cinereous its Head black It s length from the Head to the Rump is nine inches The Tail is a full Palm hand-breadth long The ridges of the Wings are white The Bill black slender a little crooked The feathers under the Tail are white The Feet are reddish small as in Swallows It hath four Toes with some rudiment of a membrane between them The Claws are black and small however crooked These Birds saith Aldrovand because they do in the shape of their bodies something resemble Swallows are called by us Rondini marini §. VII Mr. Johnsons small cloven-footed Gull IT is of the bigness of a Blackbird or something less It s Bill is slender streight sharp-pointed black round having no knob in the lower Mandible The crown of a black or dark red The sides and under-side of the Neck are red The Belly and whole nether side white The Back and Wings brown spotted with yellowish spots In the Wings is a transverse white line in the tips of the feathers The Wings are long the Tail short The Toes not web'd together but bordered on each side with lateral membranes scalloped and elegantly serrate Whence when I first saw the skin of it stuft at Mr. Johnsons at Brignal in Yorkshire from the make of its Feet I judged to be of the Coot-kind But afterwards being informed by Mr. Johnson that it is much upon the wing hath sharp Wings and cries like a small Gull differs also in the fashion of the Bill I changed my opinion and
as she kills her self 7. That whereas for the most part she hatches two young ones she brings up but one casting out the other to ease her self of the toil of nursing and feeding it 8. That she would not at all hatch her Young did she not bring the Eagles stone Aëtites into her Nest which is of wonderful vertue in promoting exclusion 9. That when the Young are sick and cannot concoct more solid food by reason of the weakness of their stomachs the old ones suck the bloud out of their prey and feed them therewith 10. That in extreme old age when their Beaks by reason of their driness are grown so crooked that they cannot feed they sustain themselves for some time by drinking 11. That the old ones when they see their young fledged and ready to fly do carry them up a height and then let them go admonishing them as it were by their own peril to make use of their Wings and by flying through the Air to save themselves from falling If after they have let them go they fall down to the ground up they take them again often repeating this kind of exercise 12. That she hath an extraordinary care of her Talons lest by any means they should be blunted Hereupon in walking she always draws them up and turns them inwards refuses to walk in stony places lest perchance she should wear their points And if she happens to sit or walk upon Rocks she spreads under her feet the skins of such Animals as she hath kill'd lest her Talons should be hurt Yea so careful is she of them that where ever she sits unless she eyes the Sun or her prey she is always looking at them fearing lest they should grow too crooked And if by chance they be blunted she sharpens them with her Bill or whets them upon stones to render them fitter for preying 13. That when she is enfeebled with old age she flies as high as ever she can above the Clouds till the dimness of her eye-sight be consumed by the heat of the Sun then presently descending with all her force while she is yet in the extremity of heat she drenches her self three times in the coldest water she can find and rising up thence streightway betakes her self to her Nest where among her young now fit for preying falling into a kind of Fever with a sweat she casts her feathers and is by them carefully nursed up and fed till she recover her plumage again 14. Whereas the greatest part of Birds either of fear or wonder fly after the Owl she not thinking such carriage to become a Kingly bird is nothing moved with that spectacle Of the latter kind are these 1. That she doth so excel in quick-sightedness that soaring so high in the air that she can very hardly be discerned by us in all that light yet she can espy a Hare lying under a bush or a little Fish swimming in the water Though I grant that both the Eagle and other Rapacious birds are very sharp-sighted yet do I not think that their eyes can reach objects at such distances 2. That she is indocile and uncapable of Discipline and not to be tamed by any humane endeavour But is only carried on headlong by her natural inclination and impetus This is not universally true For we have heard of Eagles that have been reclaimed and trained up for fowling Though it he rarely done 3. That her breath smells very ill so that by reason of the pestiferous stench thereof the bodies that are blown upon by her do easily putrefic and corrupt 4. That she is very greedy and almost unsatiable and therefore if at any time she endures hunger of which she is most patient she recompenses her long fasting by abundant eating and gorging her self And if her prey be so great and copious that any thing remains when she is satiated she leaves that to the other birds which use to follow her in expectation thereof 5. That almost all Birds of prey live without ever drinking yet is their belly always loose and their Excrements fluid For the bloud of the Animals they kill affords them liquor enough for the concoction and digestion of their meat 6. That it is very venereous For the Female being trodden thirteen times a day yet if the Male doth but call runs to him again Now whereas all salacious creatures are thought to be short-lived one may justly wonder that the Eagle should be the most lustful and yet withal the most vivacious of Birds 7. When their young ones are grown up and come to that age and strength that that they can without the help of their Parents get themselves meat they drive them far away from their Nests nay they will not suffer them to abide so much as in the same Country 8. Nature hath given the Eagle very thick hard and almost solid bones and in which there is but very little marrow All these things we have transcribed out of Aldrovandus his Ornithology where occur more such like which are common to other Rapacious Birds For besides its eminent Magnitude we do not acknowledge any Characteristic note whereby Eagles may be distinguished from Hawks How they are differenced from Vultures shall be shewn when we come to treat of Vultures As for the names of the Eagles it is called Grecians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to rush on or be carried forwards violently with great force and swiftness because of the swiftness of its flight By the Latines it is named Aquila either ab acumine visus from the sharpness of its sight or from the colour called Aquilus that is blackish or dusky so denominated from water Aqua CHAP. III. Of the several kinds of Eagles §. I. * THE GOLDEN EAGLE CHYSAETOS Aldrovandi Ornithologiae lib. 2. cap. 2. Aquila fulva sen aurea BEing put in the balance statera we found it to weigh twelve pounds From point of Beak to tip of Tail it was full three feet and nine Inches long The length from the Bill to the Talons was four spans and an half The breadth from tip to tip of the Wings extended eight spans The Beak was one Palm hand-breadth and one inch long For the hooked part alone hung down beyond the lower Chap a full Inch. The breadth of the Bill especially about the middle was more than two Inches The hooked part or point was blacker the rest of the Bill of a horn-colour inclining to a pale blue and spotted with dusky The wideness of the Mouth gaping rictus was one Palm and an Inch. The Tongue was like a Mans broad round and blunt at the tip toward the root on both sides armed with two hooked horny Appendices tied down in the middle to the lower mandible by a thin Membrane The Palate perforate in the middle The lower Chap of the Bill channelled the edges whereof standing up on both sides
more conveniently wade in waters or Whole-footed which swim in the water and are for the most part short-leg'd Those that live much about waters are either first of great size the biggest of this kind having each something singular and being not reducible to any other tribe which therefore as straglers and anomalous birds we have placed by themselves though they agree in nothing but their bigness Or secondly of lesser size These lesser are either Piscivorous or such as suck a nourishing fat juice or moisture out of muddy and boggy ground or Insectivorous The Piscivorous are Herons Storks c. The Limosugae or Mud-suckers may be distinguished by their Bills into such as have very long Bills either crooked as the Curlew or streight as the Woodcock The Insectivorous Water-birds have either Bills of a middle size for length as the Himantopus or short Bills as the Plover Lapwing c. We call those Birds Mudsuckers which suck out of the Mud or Channels some oyly slime or juice wherewith they are nourished Whence they have delicate flesh and their very guts not emptied or cleansed from the Excrements are usually eaten These have very long Bills for this purpose broad near the tip and finely chamfered or wrought with lines Speckled bodies two toes somewhat joyned all broad that they may not easily sink as they walk upon muddy and boggy grounds But because we are not so skilful as that we can certainly determine what Birds belong to each of these kinds we shall chuse rather to distinguish Cloven-footed Water-fowl not Piscivorous by the different length of their Bills into three kinds The first shall be of those that have the longest Bills whether streight as the Woodcock c. or crooked as the Curlew c. The second of such whose Bills are of a middle length as the Himantopus c. The third of short-bill'd birds as the Plover Lapwing c. Those we call long-bill'd whose Bills exceed two inches and an half length those middle-sized whose Bills are of any length between two inches and an half and one and an half Those short-bill'd whose Bills exceed not an inch and half Most Water-fowl have a short Tail none of them have their Feet so disposed as Woodpeckers and Parrots that is two forward and two backward none having more than one back toe Among Water-fowl of all kinds those that feed upon fish have the ranker and stronger-sented flesh THE FIRST PART Of Cloven-footed Water-fowl wading in Waters or frequenting watery places THE FIRST SECTION The greatest Cloven-footed Water-fowl of a singular kind CHAP. I. § I. The Crane Grus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Graecis THis is a large-bodied Fowl weighing sometimes ten pounds Measuring from the beginning of the Bill to the end of the Tail it is well nigh five foot long That it hath a very long Neck is so well known that it is needless to write it Its Legs also are very long It s Bill is streight sharp-pointed of a dark greenish colour near four inches long compressed side-ways Its Tongue broad and horny at the tip The top of the Head black from the Bill to the hinder part covered with black hairs or bristles rather than feathers On the back of the Head it hath a space or bed of the figure of a Crescent bare or thin set with hairs and of a red colour Below which on the upper part of the Neck is a triangular spot of ash-coloured feathers Two white lines or stroaks one from each Eye are produced backwards and meeting behind the Vertex of the now mentioned triangular spot are thence continued as far as the Breast The Throat and sides of the Neck are of black hue The Back Shoulders covert-feathers of the Wings Breast and all the Belly and Thighs are ash-coloured only the quil-feathers of the Wings and those on the utmost Pinion are black The Wings are very large The quil-feathers are in number twenty four and as we said black yet the lesser of them from black incline to red or russet as do also the primary covert-feathers which are on the utmost joynt or Pinion The Tail for the bigness of the bird is small and short round when spread consisting of twelve feathers all cinereous with black tips The Legs are black bare of feathers for an hand breadth above the Knees The Toes black and very long The lower joynt of the outmost and middle Toe connected by a thick membrane But that which is most rare and especially remarkable yea wonderful in this bird is the conformation of the Wind-pipe For entring far into the Breast bone which hath a great cavity within to receive it and being there thrice reflected as the figure adjoyning to the sculp of the Crane represents goes out again at the same hole and so turns down to the Lungs The blind guts are five inches long The Stomach or Gizzard musculous as in granivorous birds The flesh is very savoury and well-tasted not to say delicate We saw many Cranes to be sold in the Poulterers shops at Rome in the Winter time which I suppose had been shot on the Sea-coast They come often to us in England And in the Fen-Countries in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire there are great flocks of them but whether or no they breed in England as Aldrovandus writes he was told by a certain English man who said he had often seen their young ones I cannot certainly determine either of my own knowledge or from the relation of any credible person The delicate taste of the flesh and the musculous Stomach are sufficient arguments to evince that this bird feeds not at all upon fish but only upon herbs grain and seeds of divers sorts and it is likely upon Insects too As the Authors also that have written of it unanimously report Cranes differ from Herons 1. In that the Claw of the middle toe is not serrate as in Herons 2. In bigness wherein they exceed them 3. In having a shorter Bill And 4. a musculous stomach or Gizzard 5. Two Appendices or blind guts whereas Herons have but one 6. In the strange revolution of the Wind-pipe within the Breast-bone §. II. The Indian Crane THis is lesser than our common Crane but of the same ash-colour Its Tail is short and scarce conspicuous being hidden by the Wings It s Bill is streight narrow and longer in proportion than the Bill of the common Crane Its Nosthrils oblong The chief difference is that in this the top of the Head from the Bill to the Crown is bare of feathers only set with thin hairs rough-skin'd and of a red colour This we saw among his Majesties rare Birds kept in St. James's Park near Westminster §. III. The Balearic Crane Grus Balearica Aldrov Pavo marinus Clus FOr the shape of its body it is like to a Stork Yet its Bill is shorter not only than a Storks but than a Cranes It hath upon its Head a thick round Crest made
that of a Goose The upper Legs Thighs are four inches long and for the lower half bare of feathers The lower Legs are five inches long and almost two thick In each foot it hath four toes so situate as in Hens The middle of the three fore-toes is four inches and an half long the other two three and an half the back-toe almost two Each hath a crooked black Claw an inch long but the back toes a little longer Both Feet and Legs as far as they be naked are covered with a brown scaly skin The crown of the Head is variegated with black and white feathers The sides of the Throat and upper half of the Neck are black The lower half of the Neck and Breast are variegated with white cinereous and black feathers The lower Belly is all white On the sides under the Wings and on the Back the Plumage is black white feathers being here and there intermingled The Tail is black The Wings also are black excepting the outmost borders near the bones where they are covered with yellowish white feathers It hath a terrible cry sounding something like Vyhu Vyhu It is never found alone but always a pair Cock and Hen walk together and when one is dead the other never departs from its carkass The horn that grows on its Head is held to be a remedy against poyson being infused a whole night in Wine The same is reputed a remedy against the suffocation of the Womb and in hard travel This that I described was a Hen The Cock is of twice the bigness It makes its Nest of clay by the bodies of trees upon the ground of the shape of an Oven Thus far Marggravius This is a bird of a singular kind none like it Perchance it may be the Cuntur so much talked of Here we may note by the by that these spurs in the Wings are found only in some American birds but in none of our Continent BOOK III. PART I. SECTION II. Of Cloven-footed Piscivorous Water-fowl THese have very long Necks Their Bills also are long strong ending in a sharp point to strike fish and fetch them from under stones or brinks Long Legs to wade in Rivers and Pools of water Very long Toes especially the hind-toe to stand more firmly in Rivers Large crooked Talons and the middle serrate on the inside to hold Eels and other slippery fishes the faster or because they sit on trees lean and carrion bodies because of their great fear and watchfulness The Heron-kind is distinguished from all other tribes of birds by this most certain note that they have but one single blind gut a-piece after the manner of Quadrupeds whereas all other birds known to us have twain CHAP. I. Of Herons §. I. The common Heron or Heronshaw Ardea cinerea major sive Pella THe Female which I described weighed almost four pounds Being from the tip of the Bill to the end of the Claws four foot long to the end of the Tail thirty eight inches and an half The foremost feathers on the crown of the Head were white then succeeded a black crest four inches and an half high The Chin was white The Neck being white and ash-coloured was tinctured with red The Throat white being delicately painted with black spots and on its lower part grew small long narrow sharp white feathers The Back on which grows nothing but down is covered with those long feathers that spring from the Shoulders and are variegated with whitish strakes or lines tending downwards The middle part of the Breast and lower part of the Rump viz. that underneath the Tail inclines to yellow Under the Shoulders is a great black spot from which a black line is drawn to the Vent The prime feathers of the Wings are about twenty seven in number the last of which are ash-coloured all the rest black excepting the outer edges of the eleventh and twelfth which are somewhat cinereous The undersides of all of them is cinereous The feathers of the bastard Wing are black Under the bastard-wing is a great white spot Also white feathers cover the root of the bastard wing above Then a white line is continued all along the basis or ridge of the Wing as far as its setting on Ten of the second row of Wing-feathers are black then four or five have their exteriour borders white All the rest are ash-coloured The Tail also is ash-coloured seven inches long and made up of twelve feathers It s Bill is great strong streight from a thick base gently lessening into a sharp point from the tip to the angles of the Mouth five inches and an half long of a yellowish green colour The upper Mandible is a thought longer than the nether and therein a furrow or groove impressed reaching from the Nosthrils to the utmost tip Its sides towards the point are something rough and as it were serrate for the faster holding of slippery fishes The lower Mandible is more yellow The sides of both are thinned into very sharp edges The Mouth gapes wide The Tongue is sharp long but not hard The eye-lids and that naked space between the Eyes and Bill are green The Nosthrils are oblong narrow chinks The Legs and Feet are green The hind-part of the Legs and soals of the Feet greener The Toes very long The outmost foretoes are joyned to the middle by a membrane below The inner edge of the middle claw is serrate which is worthy the notice taking It s Stomach is large and flaggy rather membranous than musculous as in carnivorous birds in which dissected we found Ivy-leaved Duckmeat The Guts towards the Vent where the blind guts are situate are larger than in other birds It hath not two blind guts one on each side like other birds but only one like Quadrupeds but that bigger and thicker than ordinary The Gullet under the Chin is dilated into a great wideness In the middle of the Merry-thought is an Appendix It hath a long Gall-bladder Gesner counts but eleven Vertebres in the Neck I observed fifteen of which the fifth hath a contrary position viz. is reflected upward It feeds upon Fishes Frogs c. Oftentimes also it strikes and wounds greater fishes than it can draw out and carry away Young Herons may be fatted with fish guts and entrails flesh c. It sits sometimes with its Neck so bent up that its Head is drawn down to stand between its shoulders These Birds build sometimes on the tops of great trees and for the most part many together But whether they are wont to build in old Rooks Nests as Aldrovandus out of Polydore relates I leave to further enquiry We have Heronries in England such as they have in France however Bellonius denies it In which Herons are so well instructed and accustomed to breed that the owners make yearly a good profit of the young §. II. Aldrovandus his third sort of ash-coloured Heron. THis Heron which I make congenerous to the common cinereous from the
Falcinellus of Gesner and Aldrovand CHAP. V. * The Brasilian Guara of Marggrave The Indian Curlew of Clusius Exot. IT is a Land and Water-fowl of the bigness of the Spoon-bill It hath a Bill of the figure of a Polonian Sword long of a whitish ash-colour black Eyes a Neck and Head like the Spoon-bill The Wings end with the Tail which is short and carried low The Legs are long the upper half whereof covered with feathers the rest bare In each footfour Toes situate as is usual long with short Claws at bottom joyned together by a skin The Feet and Legs as far as naked are of a light grey as is also the Bill The whole Bird is covered with feathers of an elegant scarlet colour Only the quil-feathers of the Wings have their ends black This Bird when first hatch'd is of a blackish colour next it becomes ash-coloured then white After by degrees it begins to grow red and in the second year of its age is all over of that colour they call Columbin and as it grows older it acquires that elegant scarlet colour It feeds upon fish and flesh water always added That Bird which Clusius from a Picture sent him by the Duke of Areschot described by the title of the Indian Curlew is without all doubt the same with this It approached well to the bigness of a Curlew Had a long Neck a long and sharp Bill but crooked like a Sithe Long and slender Legs furnished with four Toes of which the three foremost are longest the hind-toe short All armed with black Claws The Thighs for half that part that is above the knee are destitute of feathers Which note is common to it with all other birds which are wont to frequent watery and fenny places It s Tail was short not exceeding the ends of the Wings But the feathers investing the whole body were of another colour than those of our common Curlew for they were wholly red like Vermilion excepting the ends of the quil-feathers of the Wings which were black It s Bill and Legs were yellow almost like Oker SECTION V. Water-fowl not piscivorous with slender Bills of a middle length CHAP. I. * The Himantopus of Pliny Aldrov lib. 20. cap. 30. THe whole Belly Breast and under-side of the Neck is white as is also the Head beneath the Eyes For above the Eyes it is black and so is it too on the Back and Wings The Bill is likewise black a Palm and more long slender and fit to strike Wood-lice and other Insects The Tail from white inclines to ash-colour but underneath is white On the upper side of the Neck are black spots tending downward The Wings are very long The Legs and Thighs are of a wonderful length very small and weak and so much the more unfit to stand upon because it wants a hind-toe and the fore-toes for the length of the Legs are short so that well and of right may it be called Himantopus or Loripes its Legs being soft and flexible like a thong or string The Toes are of almost equal length and of a sanguine colour yet is the middle toe a little the longest The Claws are black small and a little crooked See Gesners description of this bird and what else he hath concerning it in the Author himself or in Aldrovandus who repeats it out of him Ornithol lib. 20. cap. 30. To say the truth it hath not been our hap as yet to see this bird CHAP. II. * The Crex of Bellonius IT hath long Legs like the Limosa called by the French Chevalier but is bigger yet lesser than the Curlew It hath a long black Bill like the Curlew and also black legs and Head the Neck back and Breast white The rest of the upper parts of the body incline to ash-colour The Wings are blackish crossed on both sides by a white line near the ridge It seeks its food on the ground and in the air also pursues and preys upon flies in like manner as the Lapwing When it flies it makes a great noise This Bird Bellonius saw about the River Nile and thence guessed it to be the Crex of Aristotle because in its cry it often repeats this word Crex Crex CHAP. III. The Sea-Pie Haematopus Bellonii IT is of the bigness of a Magpie or Crow of the weight of eighteen ounces From Bill to Tail or Claws for it is all one eighteen inches long It s Bill is streight three inches long narrow or compressed sideways ending sharp of a red colour In another bird perchance a young one the Bill was half black from the tip By its figure the Bill seems to be framed by Nature to thrust under Limpets and to raise them from the Rocks that so it may feed upon their meat The upper Chap is a little longer than the nether The Irides of the Eyes and edges of the Eye-lids of a curious red colour in another bird they were from yellow hazel-coloured The Legs and Feet red It wants the back-toe The outmost and middle toe are for a good way up joyned together by a membrane So that this Bird seems to be of a middle nature between whole and cloven footed In some we observed the feet to be of a pale dusky colour perhaps those also were young ones The Claws were black The Head Neck Back and Throat to the middle of the Breast were black The rest of the Breast and Belly white as also the Rump From this likeness in colour it took the name of Sea-pie In one bird there was a great white spot under the Chin and another lesser under each eye The Tail is made up of twelve equal feathers of four inches long the lower half white the upper black The prime feathers of each Wing are about twenty eight of which the first is black having only the interiour edge white In the rest in order the white part is enlarged till in the twentieth and three following it takes up the whole feather The succeeding from the tweenty third grow gradually black again The covert-feathers of the middle quils are white and together make up a transverse bed of white in the Wing The Stomach is great not musculous but membranous in which dissected we found Limpets entire upon which it seems chiefly to feed and live as from the make of its Bill we gathered before It hath a great Liver divided into two Lobes with a Gall annexed A small Spleen Huge Ureters The Cock differs not from the Hen in colour It s flesh is very black hard having a rank taste in a word very bad meat which we cannot but wonder at seeing it feeds chiefly upon Shel-fish as do also the best rellish'd and most savoury of Water-fowl On the Coast of Wales and elsewhere on the Western Shores of England we saw abundance of these birds Care is to be taken that the Haematopus be not confounded with the Himantopus or Loripes so called from the weakness and flexibility
Tail are of a lovely bright bay Those above the Tail are of a deeper bay The feathers next them are dusky with a certain splendour The middle of the Back and the scapular feathers are of a delicate shining green adorned with a purple spot on each side next the Wings The utmost edges of the tips of the middlemost of the long scapular feathers are whitish The Neck also is of an ash-colour with a mixture of red and some black lines near the Crest Of the master-feathers of the Wing the three or four outmost are black with white tips The following to the eleventh are black From the eleventh they are white at bottom the hindmost more and more in order than the foremost Yet this white doth not appear in the upper side of the Wing but is hid by the covert-feathers Those next the body from the twenty first are green The lesser covert-feathers are beautified with purple blue and green colours variously commixt The outmost feather of the Tail on each side is white saving a black spot in the exteriour Web. The tips of all the rest are white and beneath the tips the upper half black and the lower white The Bill is black hard roundish of an inch length The upper Mandible a little more produced The Tongue not cloven but its sides reflected upwards make a channel in the middle The Nosthrils oblong and furnished with a flexile bone The Ears seem to be situate lower in this than other Birds The Eyes are hazel-coloured The Feet are long reddish in some Birds brown The back-toe small The outmost of the fore-toes joyned to the middle one at the bottom The liver is large divided into two Lobes with a Gall annexed The Gizzard not so thick and fleshy as in granivorous birds therein we found Beetles like to Meal-worms It is infested with Lice like the Tetrao The Hen is a little lesser than the Cock Her throat is all white as low as the collar The bay colour under the Tail paler Moreover the outmost feather of the Tail is wholly white wanting that brown spot The colours also in the Cocks do somewhat vary not answering always exactly in all things to our description It lays four or five Eggs of a dirty yellow all over painted with great black spots and stroaks It builds its Nest on the ground in the middle of some field or heath open and exposed to view laying only some few straws or bents under the Eggs that the Nest be not seen The Eyes being so like in colour to the ground on which they lie it is not easie to find them though they lie so open The Young so soon as they are hatcht instantly forsake the Nest running away as the common tradition is with the shells upon their heads for they are covered with a thick Down and follow the old ones like Chickens They say that a Lapwing the further you are from her Nest the more clamorous she is and the greater coil she keeps the nearer you are to it the quieter she is and less concerned she seems That she may draw you away from the true place and induce you to think it is where it is not These Birds are wont to be kept in Gardens in the Summer time in which they do good service in gathering up and clearing the ground of Worms and other Insects Their flesh is indifferent good meat In Summer time they scatter themselves about the Country to breed In Winter time they accompany together and fly in flocks CHAP. II. Of the Plover De Pluviali seu Pardale §. I. The green Plover Pluvialis viridis IN bigness it equals or exceeds the Lapwing weighing about nine ounces being in length from Bill to Tail eleven inches in breadth between the tips of the Wings extended twenty four It s colour on the top of the Head Neck Shoulders Back and in general the whole upper side is black thick set with yellowish green spots If you heed each single feather you will find the middle part to be black the borders or edges round about spotted with a yellowish green colour The Head for the bulk of the body is greater than in the Fringae the Bill streight black of an inch length furrowed about the Nosthrils The Neck short equal to a Lapwings The Breast brown spotted with a yellowish green The belly white yet the feathers on the sides tipt with brown and crossed also with brown lines Of the quil-feathers in each Wing the eleventh ends in a blunt point those before it running out into sharp points on the outside the shaft those behind it on the inside All but the five next the body are brown The shafts of the outmost eight or nine are half way white The exteriour edges of the fifth and those following it are a little white toward their bottoms The inmost five next the body are of the same colour with the Back The second row of Wing-feathers are brown or dusky with white tips The rest of the covert-feathers are on the upper side of the Wing of the same colour with the Back on the under-side with the Belly The Tail is short made up of twelve feathers of the same colour with the Back when spread terminated in a circular circumference The Feet and Claws are black It wants the back-toe By which note alone it is abundantly distinguished from the other birds of its kind Its Legs are long as in all other birds which live about waters and bare of feathers for some space above the knees It s flesh is sweet and tender and therefore highly esteemed and accounted a choice dish as well in England as beyond Seas This Bird from its spots something resembling those of a Leopard is called Pardalis §. II. The grey Plover Pluvialis cinerea called at Venice Squatarola IT is from Bill to Tail twelve inches long to the Claws fourteen Between the tips of the Wings spread twenty four inches broad It s Head Back and lesser coverts of the Wings are black with tips of a greenish grey The Chin is white the Throat spotted with oblong brown or dusky spots The Breast Belly and Thighs white The quil-feathers in each Wing about twenty six Of which the first or outmost are black In the fourth the middle part of the outer edges is white the white part in the five following being enlarged gradually The outmost of the second row of Wing-feathers are also black The tips of those next after the fourth are white and the edges too after the tenth Of the third row the foremost ten are black with white tips The Tail is three inches long not forked varied with transverse bars or beds of black and white It s Bill is black above an inch long like to the rest of this kind The Tongue not cloven The back-toe very small The fore-toes joyned by a membrane at the beginning of their divarication that between the middle and inmost lesser The Feet of a sordid green The
In the forepart of each Wing it hath the like horn or spur as the former of a yellow colour This is the Avis cornuta of Nierembergius or rather Hernandez which the Indians saith he call Yohualcuachili or Caput nocturnum §. XIII The fourth Brasilian Water-hen of Marggrave IT is of the same figure or shape with the rest It s Bill is yellow It hath a red skinny Miter or Cap on its forehead near the rise of its Bill It hath also processes extended down the sides after the manner of the Guiny Hens It s whole Head Neck Breast and lower Belly are covered with black feathers The Back Tail and beginning of the Wings with red or light brown The quil-feathers of the Wings are of a Sea-green with black tips but they are covered with those red or russet ones forementioned and cannot be seen unless when the bird flies Its Legs are long its Toes also long Each hath four joynts of an ash-colour Each Wing in the fore-part hath a very sharp horn or spur of a Saffron colour §. XIV A Water-hen called by the Brasilians Tamatia IT hath the Bill of a Sparrow-hawk is of the bigness of Yassana asu walking with a crooked Back and crooked Neck It hath a great Head great black Eyes situate near the rise of the Bill A Bill two inches long more than one broad like a Ducks indeed but sharp toward the tip It s upper part black its nether yellowish The upper Legs are bare of feathers and of a good length It hath in each foot four Toes three standing forward one backward long as in Water-hens The Legs and Toes are of a yellowish green colour The Tail very short not longer than in the Yassana It s Head is covered with black feathers the rest of its body with brown But in the Belly some white feathers are intermingled CHAP. III. §. I. * Of the Porphyrio or purple Water-hen THis Bird neither Gesner nor Aldrovandus nor we truly have hitherto seen but Pictures of it only It is if the Pictures deceive us not of the Water-hen kind It s body is all over of a blue colour The extreme half of the Tail is a whitish ash-colour The Bill and Legs of a shining purple So Gesner describes it by a Picture sent him from Montpellier Aldrovandus describes it otherwise as may be seen in Book 20. Chap. 28. of his Ornithology Seeing therefore the Pictures of this Bird do so much vary and none of those who have compiled Histories of Animals do profess themselves to have seen the Porphyrio we did sometimes doubt whether there were any such bird in nature especially seeing some of those things which the Ancients attribute to it as for example that it hath five Toes in each foot are without doubt false and fabulous But because all the Pictures of it do agree in the figure of its Bill Legs and Feet and indeed the whole body we have now changed our minds and are more apt to believe the affirmative viz. that there is such a Porphyrio as they picture akin to the Coots or Water-hens Let others who have the hap to see it describe it more exactly and so remove all doubt and scruple concerning this matter out of the minds of the learned and curious §. II. * The Quachilto or American Porphyrio of Nieremberg THe Quachilto doth imitate the watching and crowings of a Cock Some call it Yacacintli Late at night and early in the morning it crows after the manner of Cocks It is of a dark purple colour with some white feathers intermixt The Bill is pale at the beginning In the young birds the bald part at the rise of the Bill is red It is like a Coot Its Legs are yellow inclining to green ending in four pale-coloured Toes without any membrane The Eyes are black with a fulvous Iris or circle about the Pupil It is a Marsh-bird feeding upon fishes it self being no unpleasant or ill-tasted meat CHAP. IV. Aldrovands Italian Rail THis Rail as Gesner describes it is more a Water than a Land Fowl And at Mestre a Village not far distant from Venice it is taken not without great toil and expence viz. in Falcons or other Hawks and a troup of Servants who wearing Buskins or high-shoos do in the room of hunting Dogs wade up and down the shallow waters thereabouts and put up those Birds with certain Clubs they carry shaking and beating the shrubs and bushes where they lie that so they may afterwards become a prey to the Falcons that wait for them This is a very noted Bird in that City but in my judgment much inferiour for taste both to a Thrush and a Quail Aloysius Mundella principal Physician at Brescia in his Letters to me writes thus This Bird differs from our Fulica in that it hath more white in the Wings and about the Eyes It s Bill is black its Legs greenish It hath no such dissected or scalloped membranes between the Toes no baldness on the Head as far as I gather from the Picture What Bird this is and whether we have ever seen it being so briefly described with a few and some of those negative notes we cannot certainly determine MEMB. II. Cloven-footed fin-toed Birds of kin to the Waterhens §. I. The Coot Fulica IT weighs twenty four ounces From Bill-point to Tail-end is sixteen inches long to the Claws twenty two The Bill is an inch and half long white with a light tincture of blue sharp-pointed a little compressed or narrow both Mandibles equal The feet bluish or of a dusky green The back-toe little with one only membrane adhering and that not scallop'd but extending all the length of the Toe The inner fore-toe is a little shorter than the outer All the Toes longer than in whole-footed birds About the joynts of the Toes are semicircular membranes appendant on the inner Toe two the middle three the outer four These circular membranes are bigger and more distinct on the inside of the Toes so that the intermediate incisures or nicks reach to the very joynts This may be thus briefly expressed The three fore-toes have lateral membranes on each side scalloped the inner with two the middle Toe with three and the outer with four scallops From the Bill almost to the crown of the Head arises an Excrescency or Lobe of flesh bare of feathers soft smooth round which they call the baldness The feathers about the Head and Neck are low soft and thick The colour all over the body black deeper about the Head The Breast and Belly are of a lead-colour The Thighs covered with feathers almost down to the knees Just beneath the feathers is a ring of yellow about the Leg. The first ten quil-feathers are of a dark dusky or black colour the eight next lighter with white tips the last or next the body are of a deeper black The Tail consists of twelve feathers and is two inches long The Liver
and ending in a sharp point the upper Mandible arcuate and crooked at the point Where it is joyned to the Head a certain callous substance encompasses its base as in Parrots Between this callous body and the first furrow anon to be described are long holes for the Nosthrils produced by the aperture of the mouth The Bill is of two colours near the Head * cinereous or livid toward the point red it hath three furrows or grooves impressed in it one in the livid part two in the red The Mouth is yellow within The Eyes grey or ash-coloured The Eye-lids are strengthened with a black cartilage in the lower is a carneous protuberance of a livid colour in the upper a small triangular excrescency of the same colour The Feet of some are yellow I suppose those are young ones of others red situate backwards almost in the same plain with the Belly as they are in Doukers or Loons so that the Bird stands and walks almost perpendicularly erected upon the Tail It wants the back-toe The inmost of the fore-toes is the shortest the middlemost the longest The Claws are of a dark blue inclining to black The top of the Head the Neck and Back are black The Breast and Belly white A ring or muffler of black produced from the Neck encompasses the Throat The sides of the Head from the crown to the now mentioned muffler are white or of a very pale ash-colour so that the Eyes and Ears are included in these white spaces Their Wings are small made up of short feathers nevertheless near the supersicies of the water they fly very swiftly They say that out of the sight of the Sea they cannot fly at all nor unless they do ever and anon dip their Wings in the water The Tail is two inches long made up of twelve feathers all black The Stomach within is yellow The Liver divided into two Lobes with a Gall annexed They build no Nest but lay their Eggs upon the bare ground They breed in holes under ground which either they dig for themselves or borrow of the Rabbets whom they drive out and dispossess of their burrows They lay but one Egg apiece which is especially remarkable but if you take away the Egg out of any Nest that Bird will lay a second if you remove that a third and so on to the fifth It lays huge Eggs for its bigness even bigger than Hens or Ducks of a reddish or sandy colour much sharper at one end than Hens Eggs and blunter at the other In the Islands of Man Bardsey Caldey Farn Godreve Sillies and other small desert Islets near the Sea-shore they breed yearly in great numbers And not only in Islands but also on Rocks and Cliffs by the Sea-side about Scarborough Tenby and elsewhere In the Summer time they abide in the places mentioned being busie in breeding and feeding their Young In the beginning of Autumn they fly away returning again the next Spring Whither they fly and where they spend their Winter we know not It is reported that in the latter end of March or beginning of April there come over first some Spies or Harbingers which stay some two or three days as it were to view and search out the places they use to breed in and see whether all be well Which done they depart and about the beginning of May return again with the whole troup of their fellows But if that season happen to be stormy and tempestuous and the Sea troubled there are abundance of them found cast upon the shores lean and perished with famine For they cannot unless the Sea be calm either proceed in their journey or fish for their living In August they all depart nor are they seen any more any where about our Coasts till the next Spring The Young which cannot then fly they leave to shift for themselves All these things are to be understood also of the Auk and Guillemot For these three kinds do for the most part fly together and build in the same places A certain Fisherman told us that in the middle of Winter he once found a Puffin under water torpid among the Rocks not far from Bardsey Island which being again cast into the Sea streightway sank to the bottom Believe it that will Mr. Fr. Jessop sent us one killed in the fresh waters not far from Sheffield in Yorkshire much less than this we have described which yet I think differed only in age for all marks agreed Of all the birds of this kind hitherto described I think it to be true which Mr. Johnson hath observed that the underside is so far white as it is immersed in the water in swimming the upper side as far as it is extant above the water being black The Auk Guillemot this Bird and perchance all the rest of this kind and the Soland-Goose lay but one Egg and bring up but one young one at once which is a thing very remarkable and worthy the observation But that Egg for the bigness of the birds is an extraordinary great one CHAP. VI. The Greenland-Dove or Sea-Turtle Columba Groenlandica dicta HIther also is to be referred that bird which in Holland they call the Greenland-Dove for that also wants the back-toe It is like the Coulterneb but less Its Legs alike red Its Bill longer not compressed sideways sharp-pointed a little crooked at the end and prominent It hath a large white spot on the upper surface of each Wing else it is all over black of the colour of a Coot We counted in each Wing twenty six or twenty seven quil-feathers I guess this bird to be the same with the Puffinet of the Farn Islands which they told us was of the bigness of a Dove It s whole body in Summer-time being black excepting a white spot in each Wing but turning white in the Winter That it had a narrow sharp Bill that it built in the holes of the Rocks and laid two Eggs. I perswade my self also that it is the same with the Turtle-dove of the Bass Island near Edinburgh in Scotland being thereto induced by the agreement of names Why they call it a Dove or Turtle I cannot certainly tell It is indeed about the bigness of a Turtle and lays they say two Eggs at once like them and possibly there may be some agreement in their voice or note SECTION II. Whole-footed Birds with four fore-toes or four toes all web'd together CHAP. 1. The Pelecan Onocrotalus sive Pelecanus Aldrov THe length of this Bird from the point of the Bill to the end of the Feet or of the Tail was sixty inches Of the Bill it self from the tip to the angles of the mouth fourteen The space between the Eyes and the Bill is naked Its feathers are almost like a Gooses Those on the top of the Head longer than the rest standing up like a Crest The colour of the whole body white Yet the Neck is yellowish The shafts of the
they were yellow By a diligent search we could find no Nosthrils but in their stead a furrow or cranny extended on each side through the whole length of the Bill If one view them attentively the edges of both Mandibles appear serrat that it may more firmly hold the fish that it catcheth It hath four fore-toes for all its four toes are web'd together and stand forward The Legs are feathered down to the knees The Feet and Legs as far as they are bare black The Claw of the middle Toe is broad and pectinated on the inside as in Herons The Plumage is like that of a Goose The colour of the old ones that have moulted their Chicken-feathers is all over white excepting the greater quil-feathers of the Wings which are black and the top of the head which with age grows yellow The young ones are particoloured of white and dark brown or black especially on the upper part of the body The number of quil-feathers in each Wing is about thirty two The Tail is white about seven inches long consisting of twelve feathers The skin is very full sticking loose to the flesh The Bird we described was taken alive near Coleshil a Market Town in Warwickshire not being able by reason of the length of his Wings to raise himself from the ground on which I know not by what chance he had fallen down The blind guts were very short Scarce any footstep remaining of the channel conveying the Yolk into the guts In the Bass Island in Scotland lying in the middle of Edinburgh Frith and no where else that I know of in Britany a huge number of these Birds doth yearly breed Each Female lays only one Egg. Upon this Island the Birds being never shot at or frightned are so confident as to alight and feed their young ones close by you They feed only upon fish yet are the young Geese counted a great dainty by the Scots and sold very dear so that the Lord of the Islet makes no small profit of them yearly They come in the Spring and go not away again before the Autumn Whither they go and where they Winter is to me unknown CHAP. III. The Cormorant Corvusaquaticus IN bigness it is not much inferiour to a Goose The colour on the upper side is dusky shining with an obscure tincture of green exactly like that of a Shag The Breast and Belly are white Each Wing hath about thirty quil-feathers the extreme tips whereof as also of those of the second row are a little ash-coloured The Tail is extended beyond the Feet being an hand-breadth and an half long when spread ending in a round circumference being concave on the underside consisting of fourteen stiff hard feathers not being in any part covered with feathers incumbent on it either above or beneath The Bill is like that of the Shag three inches and an half long hooked at the end the upper Mandible black with sharp edges the sides of the lower Mandible compressed and broad The Tongue small and almost none The Eyes situate nearer the aperture of the Mouth than in most other birds having cinereous circles round the Pupil The Legs are strong thick but very short broad and flat at least in the young ones The Feet and Claws black covered with a skin not divided into perfect scales but cancellated It hath four Toes in each foot all web'd together by a broad black membrane and standing forward the outmost the longest the rest in order shorter The Claw of the middle Toe is serrate on the inside But what is especially remarkable in this Bird wherein it chiefly differs the bigness excepted from the Shag is that the basis of the nether Chap is covered with a naked yellow skin or membrane like the Elks. It s stomach is membranaceous but its upper part thick and glandulous Within were bones of fishes which it had devoured and also one fish entire that was a small Cod-fish also many little long blackish worms of the figure of Earthworms Such like worms also Mr. Willughby found in the stomach of a young one which he got at Sevenhuys in Holland where many birds of this kind build upon trees The Guts are long having many revolutions The blind Guts very small The Liver large divided into two Lobes the right one the bigger It is infested with Lice of a pale red colour having a great black spot in the middle of their Backs They are wont saith Jo. Faber in England to train up Cormorants to fishing When they carry them out of the rooms where they are kept to the fish-pools they hood-wink them that they be not frightned by the way When they are come to the Rivers they take off their hoods and having tied a leather thong round the lower part of their Necks that they may not swallow down the fish they catch they throw them into the River They presently dive under water and there for a long time with wonderful swiftness pursue the fish and when they have caught them they arise presently to the top of the water and pressing the fish lightly with their Bills they swallow them till each Bird hath after this manner devoured five or six fishes Then their Keepers call them to the fist to which they readily fly and little by little one after another vomit up all their fish a little bruised with the nip they gave them with their Bills When they have done fishing setting the Birds on some high place they loose the string from their Necks leaving the passage to the stomach free and open and for their reward they throw them part of their prey they have caught to each perchance one or two fishes which they by the way as they are falling in the air will catch most dextrously in their mouths This kind of fishing with Cormorants is it seems also used in the Kingdom of China as Nierembergius out of Mendoza relates This Bird builds not only on the Sea-Rocks but also upon trees For saith a certain Englishman mentioned by Aldrovand I have seen their Nests on the Rocks near the mouth of the River Tine and in Norfolk upon high trees together with the Herons Which same thing we also have observed For on the Rocks of Prestholm Island near Beaumaris we saw a Cormorants Nest and on the high trees near Sevenhuys in Holland abundance Which thing is worthy the notice-taking For besides this and the following we have not known or heard of any whole-footed bird that is wont to sit upon trees much less build its Nest upon them CHAP. IV. The Shag called in the North of England the Crane Corvus aquaticus minor sive Graculus palmipes IT is bigger than a tame Duck weighing almost four pounds It s length from Bill-point to Tail end was two foot and an half It s breadth the Wings being spread forty four inches It s Bill streight slender neither flat nor compressed sideways but rather round from the tip to the angles of
the mouth four inches long the upper Mandible black hooked at the end the nether from green of a pale yellow It hath a wide gape The Tongue is small and almost none The Nosthrils were not conspicuous at least I could not discover any that it had The Eyes small situate lower and forwarder than is usual in other birds It s body is small flat and depressed like the dun Divers The upper side of a black purplish colour or black with a dark tincture of green shining like silk The under-side is dusky but in the middle of the Belly inclining to ash-colour Under the Chin it is white behind the Vent blacker than the rest of the Belly The Tail is an hand-breadth and an half long composed of twelve feathers hard and stiff the middlemost being the longest and the outmost the shortest so that being spread it seems to resemble an hyperbolical circumference Each Wing hath thirty feathers in the first row The Wings when closed reach no further than the base or beginning of the Tail The Legs are short broad compressed feathered down to the Knees The skin of the Legs is cancellated not scaly It hath four Toes all connected by intervening membranes armed with black Claws the outmost Toe the longest the rest in order shorter The soals of the Feet and backsides of the Legs are black The membranes connecting the Toes dusky The Claw of the middle toe is serrate on the inside It hath a huge long membranous stomach which in the birds we dissected was full of small fishes It swims in the Sea with its Head erect its body almost immersed in the water When a Gun is discharged at it as soon as it sees the fire flash immediately it pops under water like a Doucker so that it is a very hard thing to shoot it It differs from the precedent 1. In bigness being much less 2. In the colour of the Belly which in this is blackish in that white 3. In the number of the feathers of the Tail which is this are but twelve whereas in that they are fourteen 4. In that the claw of the middle toe in this is serrate as in Herons in that only sharp-edged Mr. Johnson gives the Cormorant a serrate Claw and denies it to this Perchance herein there may be variety Nature as they term it sporting it self and not observing constantly the same rule 5. That in this there is not so much bare skin at the base of the Bill as in that nor of the same yellow colour 6. Lastly in the slenderness and length of the Bill This Bird also builds on trees Its Eggs are long and white CHAP. V. * The Sula of Hoier Clus near of kin to if not the same with the Soland-goose FRom the bottom of the Neck to the Rump measuring along the Back it was a Roman foot long From the top of the Head to the Back were eleven inches The Neck was as much about The length of the Bill which was very sharp-pointed and strong was five inches and an half The thicker part of the Bill and that about the Eyes was black The compass of the body was full twenty four inches that is two Roman feet The Wings were more than a foot long but the longer feathers of the Tail did not exceed the length of seven inches It had but slender and infirm Legs and those not more than two inches long and wholly of a black colour as were also the Feet which were very broad consisting of four Toes of which the outermost and that next it which were the longest consisted of three articulations the third of two the least of one each armed with a small claw except the second the Nail whereof is a little broader than the rest and serrate on one side but they are all joyned together by a black membrane The longer prime feathers of the Wings are all black as are also those three which are longest and lie uppermost and take up the middle part of the Tail The rest of the body was covered with white feathers which yet in the Back were something yellowish as if they were strowed with clay or dust This Bird in many things agrees with the Soland-goose yet in some it differs viz. the sharpness of the Bill the black colour about the Eyes the smalness of the Legs and the black colour of the middle feathers of the Tail But I suppose Clusius was mistaken in the number of the joynts of the outer Toe for the outer and middle Toe in no bird that I have yet hapned to see except only the Swift do agree in the number of joynts Nor doth the outer Toe consist of three articulations but four the middle of three the inner of two and the least or back-toe of one Clusius took this description from a dried bird sent by Dr. Henry Hoier Physician in Bergen in Norwey to Dr. Peter Pauw first Professor of Physick in Leyden It is he saith called Sula by the Inhabitants of the Islands Ferroyer where it is taken Those Islands Hoier writes in his Epistle to Clusius are said to be so called from the abundance of feathers there CHAP. VI. The Tropic Bird. IT is of the bigness of a Duck hath a red Bill about two inches long somewhat bending downward and sharp-pointed A line of black is drawn on each side from the corner of the mouth to the back of the Head The Belly is white The Back also is white but variegated with transverse lines of black thick set which make it very beautiful to behold The Wings are very long yet each single feather short as in the Soland-goose In the outmost quil-feathers the one Web i. e. that on the outside the shaft is black the other or inner Web white in the next to these the middle part of the feather along the shaft is black the edges on both sides white the next to these are all white those next of all to the body black and longer than the rest The Feet are black the Legs white All the four Toes web'd together In the Tail if one may rely upon the stuft skin or credit the relation of those those that sent it are only two very long feathers of about eighteen inches narrow and ending in snarp points This description I took from the case of the bird conserved in the Repository of the Royal Society It is called the Tropic-bird because it is found about the Latitude of the Tropic circles and no where else so far as hath been by our English Travellers hitherto observed My honoured and ingenious friend Mr. Martin Lister of York takes this to be the bird described in the History of the Carribbee Islands in these words There are seen near these Islands and sometimes at a great distance from them in the Sea certain birds perfectly white whose Beaks and Feet are as red as Coral They are somewhat bigger than Crows They are conceived to be a kind of Herons because their
membranes armed with sharp and crooked Claws The Thighs are also hid in the Belly It is of the Mergi Diver or rather Colymbi Doucker kind In diving it can hold its breath a long time and no bird can plunge under water more nimbly and speedily than it as they experience who shoot them For so soon as the powder flashes it presently ducks under water before the bullet can come at it It builds its Nest so near the water that it can if need be speedily cast it self into it But when it betakes it self again to its Nest fastning its Bill into the earth it hangs its whole weight upon it till it raises up its body and so by degrees reaches its Nest It perceives before by a peculiar natural instinct when there are about to fall great showers and shots of rain and fearing lest the flouds should destroy its Nest and Young its makes a querulous noise and cry On the contrary when it presages fair weather it expresses its joy by chearful acclamations and another more pleasant note It lays yearly three or four Eggs as big as Geese Eggs of a green colour and spotted They say that at set times of the year they depart into hotter Regions and return not until the Spring be well come on Whence they think it ominous for any one to hear the cry of this bird first fasting The Norwegians think it a sin to kill or disturb this Bird which they account holy They sometimes catch it in their Nests against their wills and sometimes shoot it with Guns The Islanders because they eat it take it either with a snare or with an angle-line They fasten two stakes at the entrance of the Nest upon which they hang and so accommodate the Snare that the Bird going to her Nest may thrust her head into it Or they cross the Pool where she frequents at its narrowest part with a fishing line so that one on each side holds it raking therewith the surface of the water till the bird fearing some danger towards dives down to the bottom then observing the place where she is rising up again by the circles there made in the water thither they direct and there hold a snare fastned to the line that coming up out of the water she may put her head into it and so be caught by the Neck It s skin is used to defend the Head and Breast from the injury of cold and preferred before a Swans This Bird Besler hath figured in his Gazophylacium by this title A singular kind of exotic Water-Swallow But it hath nothing almost common with a Swallow §. IV. * The small black and white Diver with a short sharp-pointed Bill THe Picture of this Bird was communicated by that worthy person Sir Thomas Brown It hath a short Bill a little bending at the end both Mandibles The top of the Head the Back Wings and in general the whole upper part is black excepting a transverse line of white in the Wings The Chin Throat Breast as far as the middle of the Belly and sides of the Tail white The Tail short The Legs of a sordid green The Toes web'd together The Picture doth not shew any hind-toe This Bird saith Sir Thomas is not usual with us I have met with but two of them brought me by a coaster who could give it no name SECTION VI. Of SEA-GULLS called in Latine LARI CHAP. I. Of Gulls in general GUlls are a whole-footed fowl with an indifferent long narrow sharp-pointed Bill a little crooked at the end oblong Nosthrils long and strong Wings short Legs small Feet for they do not swim much a light body but invested with many and thick-set feathers a carrion carkass the fat that is sticking to the skin as in other birds much upon the Wing very clamorous hungry and piscivorous These we divide into two kinds First The greater which have Tails composed of feathers of equal length and an angular prominency or knob on the lower Chap of the Bill underneath to strengthen it that they may more strongly hold fishes 2. The lesser which have a forked Tail and no knob on the Bill Both kinds may be divided into pied or particoloured and grey or brown CHAP. II. The greater Gulls with Tails of equal feathers And first such as are pied or particoloured of white and cinereous or black §. I. The great black and white Gull Larus ingens marinus Clusii THis Bird the biggest by much of all the Gulls we have hitherto seen weighed four pounds and twelve ounces It s length from the tip of the Bill to the end of the Tail was twenty six inches Its breadth from tip to tip of the Wings distended sixty seven It s Bill was yellow compressed sideways more than three inches long something hooked at the end and like in figure to those of the rest of this kind The lower Mandible underneath bunched out into a knob marked on each side with a double spot the lower red the upper black The edges of the Eye-lids round about were of a Saffron colour The Head great flat-crowned Both Head Neck Breast Belly and Tail white The middle of the Back and the Wings excepting the tips of the quil-feathers were black Each Wing had about thirty four feathers in the first row all black with white tips It s Tail was six inches long made up of twelve snow-white feathers Its Legs and Feet white Its Claws black It had a small back-toe a wide Mouth a long Tongue a large Gullet It preys upon fishes For out of its stomach dissected we took a Plaise entire It had a great Liver divided into two Lobes with a Gall adhering Short and small blind guts A musculous Stomach and an oblong Spleen In another bird of this kind which was I suppose a young one both the top of the Head and the Neck were particoloured of black and white The Back and Wings paler than in that described I suppose that this is the very same bird which Clusius describes in the fifth Book of his Exotics Chap. 9. under the title of a huge Sea-gull though his description be not so full and exact as being taken only from a Picture This Bird we saw and described at Chester being not rarely found on the Sea-coasts near that City In the Feroe Islands it is called The Swarth-back §. II. The Herring-Gull Larus cinereus maximus IT is well nigh as big as a tame Duck From tip of Bill to the end of the Toes twenty four or twenty five inches long to the end of the Tail twenty two or twenty three Between the terms of the Wings stretched out fifty and in some fifty five inches broad The weight was different in several birds one weighing only twenty six ounces another thirty another thirty four The Bill was yellow two inches long narrow as in the rest of this kind but pretty deep The lower Mandible not streight as in other birds
kill'd we have not as yet seen at hand It is of the biggest of this kind equal to or bigger than a tame Duck. Its Bill is stronger bigger and shorter than in other great Gulls black hooked at the end and seemed to be covered with a skin from the base to the Nosthrils as in Land-birds of prey Its Legs and Feet were black Its Toes armed with strong crooked Claws such as we never before observed in any whole-footed Fowl The colour of the Back is a rusty cinereous or brown like that of a Buzzards Its Belly and underside paler The greater quil-feathers of the Wings are black The Tail also is black about seven inches long made up of twelve feathers of which the two middlemost are somewhat longer than the rest The bottoms of the feathers as well of the Tail as Wing-quils are white The length of the Bill from the tip to the angles of the Mouth was no more than two inches and an half The angular prominence on the lower Chap is small and scarce conspicuous Hapning to read over the description of Hoiers Skua in the Auctarium of Clusius his Exotics pag. 367. I find it exactly to agree with ours so that I do not at all doubt but this Bird is the Skua of Hoier Clusius his description being more full than ours I shall here subjoyn The Bird sent me by Hoier was saith he of the bigness of a great Gull from the bottom of the Neck to the Rump nine inches long The compass of its body measuring under its Wings was sixteen inches The Neck from the crown of the Head to the Back was seven inches long The Head not very great nor the Bill flat but rather long and narrow on the part next the Head rugged and rough towards the point smooth black and crooked almost like those of rapacious birds or Gulls not exceeding the length of two inches The Wings were almost seventeen inches long reaching something further than the end of the Tail The four greater quil-feathers of the Wings were black not white at the tip as Hoier wrote unless perchance he had observed that mark in other birds of this kind From the quill or naked part I found them to be white half way up the feather as were also the three greater and uppermost Tail-feathers below where they were inserted into the Rump the upper part being black as in the quil-feathers As for the rest of the feathers investing the body they were of a colour between black and cinereous but the black predominant and did nearly resemble the feathers of a bald Buzzard or Kite The Legs were placed backward in the hindmost part of the body at in most Water-fowl above the Knee they were very short below the Knee down to the Foot almost three inches long The Feet were flat having three Toes and a short Heel The outmost Toe next in length to the middlemost consisted of four joynts the middle which was the longest of three the inmost which was the shortest of two and the heel or back-toe of one All ending in sharp crooked Claws and joyned together by a black membrane or cartilage to the very Claws The characteristic notes of this species are 1. The thickness and its Bill 2. The uniform black colour of its Tail as far as it appears beyond the incumbent feathers 3. The bigness and crookedness of its Talons Hoier writes that it preys not only upon fish but on all kinds of small birds The Cornish Gannet as they told us doth constantly accompany the sholes of Pilchards still hovering over them in the Air. It pursues and strikes at these fish with that violence that they catcht it with a strange artifice They fasten a Pilchard to a board which they fix a little under water The Gannet espying the Pilchard casts himself down from on high upon it with that vehemence that he strikes his Bill clear through the board and dashes out his brains against it and so comes to be taken We saw many of these Gannets flying but could not kill one They seem to be very strong birds long-winged and fly swiftly §. II. * Aldrovandus his Catarracta IT comes near to the bird last described It saith he exactly resembles a Goshawk to which our Bird also answers very well both in bigness and figure and in the colour of the upper side of the body so that you can scarce distinguish them for on the upper side like that it is variegated with brown white and yellow mingled on the under side it is all white spotted with brown as the Picture shews Aristotle also writes that it is less than a Hawk and that it hath a large and broad Throat or Gullet which last note agrees exactly to my bird though indeed other Gulls also have a wide throat as well as this But I think Aristotle likened it to a Hawk not only for its bigness but because it was alike spotted and especially because it preys after the manner of a Hawk and for that purpose is endued with a Bill for the bigness of its body very great and strong sharp-pointed also and the upper Chap more than ordinarily hooked It is an inch thick and of a deep black The Neck also is pretty long The Head lesser than in Gulls The Wings in length are even with the Tail The Tail is a Palm long and black The Hips covered with feathers to the Knees which in other Gulls are not so but bare a little higher Its Legs Feet and intervening membranes cinereous The Claws black crooked and small It differs from our Catarracta chiefly 1. In the colour of the underside of the body 2. In the colour of the Feet 3. In the smalness of the Claws But these things notwithstanding perchance it may be the same For Aldrovandus as I gather from his words took his description from a Picture But Painters are not wont to be very exact either in expressing of the colours or delineating the parts This description also doth in many things agree to that Gull which we shall next describe under the title of the Cornish Wagel §. III. The great grey Gull which we take to be the Cornish Wagel called at Venice Martinazzo at Amsterdam the Burgomaster of Groenland An Larus albo-cinereus torque cinereo of Aldrov IT weighed twenty two ounces being stretcht out in length from the point of the Bill to the end of the Feet twenty one inches and an half to the end of the Tail twenty one its breadth was fifty three inches It s colour as well in the lower as upper side was grey such as is seen in the back of a wild Duck or a Curlew being mixed of whitish and brown Mr. Willughby gives also some mixture of ferrugineous both to the brown and to the ash-colour in the Wings and Back The feathers of the Back are black in the middle and ash-coloured about the edges The Rump-feathers incumbent on the Tail are for the most part white only
think that it ought rather to be referred to the Gulls to which I have subjoyned it SECTION VII Of Whole-footed Birds with broad Bills THese may be divided into the Goose-kind and the Duck-kind The marks of the Goose-kind of which we shall first treat are a bigger body Large Wings a long Neck a large and round-ended train A white ring about the Rump A rounder Back not so flat and depressed as in the Duck-kind A Bill thicker at the base slenderer toward the tip and not so flat and broad at the end as in Ducks To which might be added shorter Legs MEMB. I. The Goose-kind CHAP. I. Of the Swan De Cygno §. I. The tame Swan Cygnus mansuetus THis Bird is much the biggest of all whole-footed Water-fowl with broad Bills An old one we made trial of weighed twenty pounds From the tip of the Bill to the end of the Tail was fifty five inches long to the end of the Feet fifty seven The distance between the tips of the Wings extended was seven foot and eight inches The whole body is covered with a soft delicate Plumage in the old ones purely white in the young ones grey The quils of the greater Wing-feathers in this Bird are greater than in the wild Swan The Bill in the young ones of the first year is of a lead colour having a round nail as it were at the tip and a black line on each side from the Nosthrils to the Head From the Eyes to the Bill is a triangular space bare of feathers of a black colour the base whereof respects the Bill the vertex the Eyes In old ones the Bill is red the hook or nail at the end being black Above at the base of the Bill grows a great Lobe of tuberous flesh of a black colour bending forward or downward The space under the Eyes always continues black The Tongue is indented or toothed The Feet of a lead colour bare a little above the knee The inmost Toe hath a lateral membrane appendant The Claws are black The stomach is furnished with thick and strong muscles The Guts have eight or nine revolutions and are large The Wind-pipe in this kind enters not the Breast-bone Wherefore Aldrovand doth not rightly infer that Aristotle never dissected this Fowl because he makes no mention of this ingress and of the strange figure of the Wind-pipe For this is proper to the wild Swan not common to both kinds we having not observed such a conformation of the Wind-pipe in any of those tame Swans we have dissected Aldrovandus therefore thinking there was but one kind of Swan viz. that which he dissected did erroneously attribute what was proper to that one kind to the Swan in general We have opened two wild Swans and in both have observed the Wind-pipe so to enter the cavity of the Breast-bone and to be there so reflected as Aldrovandus hath expressed both in words and figures Of tame Swans we have anatomized many and in all have observed the wind-pipe to descend streight down into the Lungs without any such digression or reflection It is a very long-lived fowl so that it is thought to attain the age of three hundred years Which saith Aldrovandus to me seems not likely For my part I could easily be induced to believe it For that I have been assured by credible persons that a Goose will live a hundred years or more But that a Swan is much longer-lived than a Goose if it were not manifest in experience yet are there many convincing arguments to prove viz. that in the same kind it is bigger That it hath harder firmer and more solid flesh That it sits longer on its Eggs before it hatches them For that I may invert Plinies words Those creatures live longest that are longest born in the Womb. Now incubation answers to gestation For the Egg is as it were an exposed Womb with the young enclosed which in viviparous Animals are cherished and as I may so say hatched within the body in oviparous Animals without the body by the warmth of the old one sitting upon them The Swan feeds not upon fish but either upon herbs growing in the water and their roots and seeds or upon Worms and other Insects and shell-fish Albertus writes truly that its flesh is black and hard As the Bird it self is far bigger than a Goose so its flesh is blacker harder and tougher having grosser fibres hard of digestion of a bad and melancholic juice Yet for its rarity serves as a dish to adorn great mens Tables at Feasts and entertainments being else in my opinion no desirable dainty It lays seven or eight Eggs and sits near two months before its young ones be hatcht They make use of the skin the grosser feathers pluckt off and only the Down left and so drest as a defensative against cold especially to cover and cherish the Breast and Stomach §. II. A wild Swan called also an Elk and in some places a Hooper IT weighs less than a tame Swan not exceeding two hundred sixty five ounces or sixteen pound three quarters Its length from the tip of the Bill to the end of the Feet was sixty inches to the end of the Tail fifty six The figure of the body is the same with the tame Swans The colour white yet not all over so white as the tame Swans For the middle of the Back and the smaller covert-feathers of the Wings are cinereous Sometimes also here and there a brown feather is mixt with the white ones in the Back Each Wing hath thirty eight quils The first feather of the bastard-wing is longer than ordinary as in the tame Swan The quils much less than in that The Bill towards the tip and as far as the Nosthrils is black Thence to the Head covered with a yellow membrane Mr. Willughby describes the Bill a little differently thus The upper Mandible is moveable from the Eyes to the Nosthrils bare and of a fair yellow colour beyond the Nosthrils black The lower Mandible is black but the membrane under the Chin yellow The Legs are bare of feathers a little above the knees of a dusky yellow as are also the Feet The Wind-pipe after a strange and wonderful manner enters the Breast-bone in a cavity prepared for it and is therein reflected and after its egress at the divarication is contracted into a narrow compass by a broad and bony cartilage then being divided into two branches goes on to the Lungs These branches before they enter the Lungs are dilated and as it were swoln out into two cavities On the sides of the Rump grow two huge glandules out of which by a light pressure may be squeezed a certain glutinous substance like to ear-wax wherewith she anoints and composes her feathers But these glandules are not peculiar to this Bird though perchance greater and more remarkable in her but common to all The Bird we described was a Female The knot or bunch of Eggs was situate far within the
not exceeding two inches made up of twelve feathers of a dark grey the outmost the shortest the rest gradually longer to the middlemost yet the excess is not considerable so that notwithstanding it is not to be reckoned among those that have sharp Tails The quils of the Wings are about twenty five all of one colour viz. a dark cinereous though if they be carefully heeded there will appear some diversity for the tips of the exteriour and greater feathers are marked with black of the middle ones with white The interiour bastard-wing and lesser covert-feathers of the underside of the Wings are white The Bill is bigger and broader than in the Wigeon The feathers divide the middle of the upper Mandible coming down from the forehead in form of a peak or acute angle The upper Mandible is of a lead-colour but its tip black The nether is wholly black The Irides of the Eyes are of a very beautiful colour from yellow inclining to a sparkling red The Feet lead-coloured The membranes connecting the Toes black The inmost toe the least having a membranous border annexed to its outside The back toe hath likewise an appendant membrane or fin The characteristic note of this Bird is one uniform colour of its Wings without any feathers of different colour in the middle of the Wing as is usual in most Birds of this kind In another Bird of this kind which we take to be the Female of this the Bill was black with an ash-coloured spot of the form of a crescent a little above the tip The back feathers and coverts of the Wings had no such transverse waved lines as those of the Male. In other points it agreed mostwhat with the Male. §. XII The lesser red-headed Duck Perchance the Anas Filigula altera of Gesner Aldrov p. 227. The Glaucium or Morillon of Bellonius Capo rosso at Venice IT is bigger than a Teal and something less than a Wigeon It s Bill two inches and an half long of a moderate breadth of a dark blue colour paler about the edges and toward the tip The very tip or nail is round and black The Nosthrils small long situate almost in the middle of the Bill The Irides of the Eyes of a cream or Ivory colour The Head is pretty great all over red But in the very angle of the lower Mandible is a small white spot The Neck as in others of this kind is short encompassed in the middle with a ring of brown The whole Back and covert-feathers of the Wings are of a dark brown or dusky colour All the quils of the Wings which are in each about twenty six except the three or four outmost and the three or four inmost are white with brown tips so that when the Wing is spread they represent a broad transverse line of white The Tail is very short the middle feathers which are the longest being about two inches and a quarter in length the outmost shorter of a brown or dusky colour the number of feathers fourteen The Breast below the ring down to the Merry-thought is red which colour above also reaches to the middle of the Shoulders The rest of the Breast and the upper Belly is white the lower to the Vent dusky or dark grey The feathers under the Tail are white those long ones on the thighs red The Legs and Feet black especially the joynts and membranes connecting the Toes The back-toe hath a broad appendant membrane or sin as in the rest of this kind The Wind-pipe hath a labyrinth at the divarication and besides above swells out into a puff-like cavity The stomach is musculous These Birds vary something in the colour especially of their Wings A Bird of this kind weighed twenty one ounces was in length from the tip of the Bill to the end of the toes seventeen inches and an half in breadth between the extremes of the Wings expanded twenty six and three quarters The length of the guts forty two inches The description of the Anas Fuligula altera of Gesner in Aldrovand agrees well to this Bird So doth also the description and figure of the Morillous or Glaucium of Bellonius especially in the colour of the Eyes But because there is some difference we will subjoyn his description that the Reader himself may judge The Glaucium or Morillon of Bellonius There is saith he also another Water-fowl called in our common speech Morillon very like to a Duck and of the same bigness having its Bill cut in the edge like a Saw its Legs and Feet red on the inside dusky on the out It s whole Head to the middle of the Neck of a deep ferrugineous Below the ferrugineous a whitish circle encompasseth the Neck The Breast is of an ash-colour the Belly white The Back and Wings black But in these if they be stretcht out appear seven white feathers which render the Wings particoloured as in a Pie The rest of the Wings as also the Tail resembling that of a Cormorant are black Getting its food for the most part out of the water it lives upon little vermine and creeping things which it finds in the bottom of the water Diving also and continuing long under water it catches small fishes and water Millepedes or Lice which the French call les Escrouelles It feeds also upon the seeds of herbs which grow on River-banks and upon young Cray-fish and Snails It hath a Tongue so fleshy that near the root it seems double A broad Breast like the rest of the Duck-kind Short Legs stretched out backwards like the Divers Mergi In the inward parts this only is peculiar to it that no Gall appears in it The Liver is divided into two Lobes one whereof is incumbent on the stomach the other on the guts This description in most notes the magnitude excepted agrees to our Bird. For though Bellonius in his description affirms that the ring about the Neck is white yet in his figure he represents it black §. XIII The Golden-eye Anas platyrhynchos mas Aldrov p. 225. Clangula Gesneri Aldrov p. 224. Quattro occhii Italis Weisser Dritvogel of the Germans about Strasburgh IT is thick and short-bodied and hath a great head It s Neck as in the rest of this kind is short Its Bill broad indeed but short more elevated and not so flat or depressed as in the rest of this kind thicker at the head lesser and narrower toward the tipl all black from the tip to the angles of the mouth an inch and three quarters long The Head is of a very dark green or of a changeable colour of black purple and green as it is variously exposed to the light shining like silk At the corner of the Mouth on each side is a round white spot as big as a three pence whence it got its name Quattr ' occhii in Italian The Irides of the Eyes are of a lovely yellow or gold-colour The whole Neck both above and underneath
underneath are grey above about the extremes black next from fulvous inclining to red then from fulvous declining to pale and lastly near the Back fulvous It feeds and lives upon fishes very easily becomes tame and sings not unpleasantly but must be carefully and tenderly fed with worms and water-insects You may also for want of other more natural food give its flesh to eat It yields a gross nourishment not unlike to that which wild Ducks afford It is native of the Country of Mexico and breeds in the Spring among the Rushes Whereas the Neck in comparison with the rest of its body is very long it is wonderful strange into what a shortness it can contract it which it is commonly wont to do It s Tail is little and black shewing something of splendour and widening into a greater breadth They call it by its Country-name Tolcomoctli This Bird would be altogether like its fellow were not its Bill black above and red underneath as also its Legs and Feet And the colour of its whole body fulvous and black promiscuously Of the Hoactzin IT s use in Physic recommends the bird Hoactzin that utters a sound like its name It is almost as big as a Turkey hath a crooked Bill a white Breast inclining to yellow Wings and Tail spotted at intervals of an inch distance Of a white and pale colour the Back and upper part of the Neck fulvous but both inclining to brown as do also the temples of the Head as far as the Bill and Eyes It hath black Claws and dusky Legs It hath a crest made up of feathers from white inclining to a pale colour but their back-side black It feeds upon Snakes It hath a great voice representing a kind of howling It appears in the Autumn and is by the Natives accounted an unlucky bird Its bones asswage the pain of any part of mans body by launcing The smoak or suffumigation of its feathers brings them to their right mind who grew distracted by any sickness The ashes of its feathers taken inwardly cure the French Pox giving marvellous help It lives in hot Countries as is Yautepec and very often is found sitting upon trees near Rivers Of the dry Bird or Hoactli NEither is the Hoactli or Tobactli that is the dry bird feeding about the Lake of Mexico a contemptible spectacle From the point of the Bill to the end of the Tail it is three spans long and of the bigness of a common Hen. Its Legs are a foot long Its Bill is five inches long perchance he may mean 1 â…“ of an inch the words are Cum uncia trientem and an inch thick black above pale on the sides and underneath black and brown Its Eyes are great it s Iris yellow and Eye-lids red The crown of the Head is covered with black feathers and adorned with a crest in like manner black It s Neck Breast Belly and whole body are white but its Tail ash-coloured as are also its Wings above for underneath they are whiter The upper parts of its Wings shine with a kind of greenness The Back though it be covered with white Plumage or down yet is wont to be invested with black feathers inclining to a shining green The Feet which are cloven into Toes and also the Legs are pale It s Head is compassed with a white wreath or ring proceeding from the rise of the Bill to the Eyes It is a stranger to the Lake of Mexico coming from some other place and is called by Spaniards Natives Martinete pescador from its catching of fish upon which it feeds It breeds among the Reeds it bites shrewdly and hath a great flat voice Of the Wind-bird Heatototl HEatototl or the Wind-bird is also worthy to be beheld It is adorned with a great orbicular crest standing up like a crown and a little whitish It s Breast from brown inclines to cinereous Its Belly is white and Feet flat Its Legs and the feathers growing about them fulvous It s Tail is round underneath varied with white and a sooty colour but above brown Its Wings underneath are white ash-coloured and sooty above black yet with some white feathers interspersed In other respects it is of the same nature with other Water-fowl and like to the other Heatototle which is something less then a tame Duck with a black slender round Bill and near the end wreathen Its feathers underneath white but above near the Thighs fulvous Its Wings underneath are ash-colour but above brown black and white It s Head is black and crested but from the hinder part of the Head black stroaks proceed on both sides to the Eyes which are black with a yellow Iris. In other things they are like to birds frequenting Fens and Marshes Of Achalalactli and Amalozque birds with rings about their necks IT s silver-coloured ring adorns the Neck of Achalalactli or the Bird that tosses and throws fishes about Some call it Michalalactli It is of the bigness and shape of a Dove hath a black sharp Bill three inches long and thick for the proportion of its body It s Head is adorned with a long crest from blue inclining to black It s Belly is covered with white feathers and its Neck beautified with a white ring Its Wings underneath are white but their ends brown spotted with white Above like the rest of the body blue but their extreme parts black and spotted every where with white specks It s Tail is partly black partly blue but at intervals also varied with white spots Its Legs are red its Feet divided into Toes ending in black Claws Its Eyes black and Irides white It is a stranger to this Country of Mexico and frequents Rivers and Fountains feeding upon little fish and water Insects It is edible but of like taste and nourishment with other Fen and Marsh birds Nor is the Amalozque or red-neckt bird of less beauty It is also a Marsh-bird of the bigness of our common Turtle-dove Its Legs and Feet which are divided into Toes being of a delayed red or white dashed with red It s Claws black Its Bill of a moderate length slender and black Its Eyes black and Irides red The lower parts of the Breast Belly and Wings are white But its Tail which is of a moderate bigness is sprinkled with fulvous and black But what is most remarkable two black collars distant by the breadth of ones little finger encompass the Neck and Breast the foremost whereof incircles it round the hindmost fails and disappears in the upper part or above the Neck On both sides are two white spots of equal bigness above the Eye toward the Neck and reaching almost to it The upper part of the body and also the tail are of a white black and fulvous colour But the Wings above fulvous and brown This Bird is native of the Lake of Mexico breeding and bringing up its young there in the Spring-time It s flesh is eaten and affords like nourishment with that
Pigeon Columba domestica major a Runt Columba tremula laticauda A broad-tail'd Shaker TAB XXXV Turtur The Turtle Dove Turtur Indicus Aldrop The Indian Turtle Palumbus torquatus The Ring Dove Oenas Aldr The wood Pigeon TAB XXXVI Turtur minimus Barbadensis The least Barbados Turtle Turdus viscivorus The Missel-bird Merula The Black-bird Passer solitarius The Solitary Sparrow Merula Saxatilis The greater Redstart Galbula juvenis TAB XXXVII urdus simpliciter dictus The Mavis or Song Thrush Turdus pilaris The Fieldfare Merula The Blackbird Passer solitarius mas Aldrov Mreula torquata The Ring Ouzell Sturnus The Stare or Starling TAB XXXVIII Merula Saxatilis Aldrov The Rock Ouzell Sturnus Indicus Bontij The Indian Stare Guira punga Oriolus Seu Galbula Pitangaguacu Marggr Atinga guacu mucu Marggrav Matuitui Marggr TAB XXXVIIII Hirundo apus The black Martin or Swift Hirundo domestica The common house Swallow Hirundo agrestis seu rustica The Martin or Martlet Hirundo riparia The Bank Martin Ruticilla the Redstart Rubecula The Robin-red Breast Hirundo domestica TAB XL Emberiza Flava The Yellow hammer Emberiza alba The Bunting Hortulanus Alauda vulgaris The ComoÌ„n Lark Alauda cristata major The crested Lark Tottovilla Olinoe The wood Lark TAB XLI Luscinia The Nightingale Atricapilla The Black-cap Tijeguacuparoara Marggr Oenanthe sive vitiflora The white-tail Muscipeta 3a Oenanthe tertia The Stone-chatter Guiraguacuberaba TAB XLII Roth beinlein Baltner Motacilla alba The white water wag-tail Regulus cristatus The copped wren Iamacaii Marggrav Passer troglodytes The wren Regulus non cristatus â—urissia sive Tominâ—io Mergus Americunus Guainumbi The Humming bird TAB XLIII Parus major seu Fringillago The Great Titmouse or Ox-ey Parus ater The Colemouse Parus coeruleus The blew Titmouse or Nun. Parus palustris The Marsh Titmouse Parus cristatus The crested Titmouse Parus caudatus The long tail 's Titmouse TAB XLIIII Coccothraustes The Grosbeak or Hawfinch Coccothraustes Indica cristata The Virginian Nightingale Chloris The Greenfinch Rubicilla The Bullfinch Loxia The Crosse-bill Passer A Sparrow TAB XLV Passer Stultus Olin The Foolish Sparrow Passer montanus the mountain Sparrow Passer Indicus macrourus Aldr. The Long-taild Indian Sparrow Fringilla The Chaffinch Montifringilla The Brambling Tijeguacu parvara TAB XLVI Carduelis The Gouldfinch Linaria The Linnet Linaria rubra The Red Linnet Ligurinus The siskin Passer Canariensis The Canary Bird. Avicula Anadavadensis The Anadavad Bird. Citrinilla Serinus Gesn. TAB XLVII Iabiru Marggrau Iabiru guacu Scurvogell Belgarum Anhima Marggrav 2. Iabiru rostrum Ibidis falsò dictum TAB XLVIII Grus The Crane Aspera arteria in sternu ingressa reslexa a. Caput b. divaricatio Grus Balearica TAB XLIX Ardea cinerea major The Common Heron. Ibis Bellon Ardea alba major The Greate white Heron. Ardea cinerea minor The Night-raven TAB L. Ardeae haematopus Aldr. Ardeae Stellaris The Bittern Ardeae congener Squaiotta Aldr. TAB LI. Soco Marggravij Cocoi Marggravij Cariama Brasiliensis Marg. Ardeola Brasiliensis Marg. Fulica Major The greater Coot TAB LII Ciconia alba The Stork Ciconia nigra The Black Stork Plutea seu Albardeola The SPoon bill Ardea stellaris The Bittern TAB LIII Guarauna Scolopax The woodcock Gallmago minor The Snipe Totanus The Godwit Fedoa altera The Yarwhelp TAB LIIII Arquata The Curlew Curucaca Falcinellus Aldr. Himantopus Guara TAB LV. Glottis seu Pluvialis major Ald. Haematopus Bellonij Gallinula erythropus major The Redshank Morinellus The Dotrell Tringa minor The Sandpiper Tringa TAB LVI Rotknussel an Avis pugnax foem Callidrys nigra The Knot Cinclus Bellonij Avis pugnax mas A Ruffe Matkneltzell Avis pugnax foemina The Reeve TAB LVII Pluvialis virulis The green Plover Vannellus The Lapwing Pluvialis cinerea The grey Plover Morinellus The Dottrell Charadrius alter Charadrius The Sea Lark TAB LVIII Morinellus marinus The Sea-Dottrell Oedicnemus The Stone Curlew Gallinula chloropus The waterhen or more-hen Iunco avis Peliopus Gallinula minor Rallus aquaticus The water Rail TAB LIX Iacana Tamatia Colymbus major The greater Loon or Diuer Fulica The Coot Mergulus melanoleucos rostro brevi TAB LX. Phoenicopterus The Flammant Trochilus Aldrov Rocurvirostra Avosetta Italorum TAB LXI Colymbus maximus caudatus The greatest Loon. Colymbus cristatus The crested Diver or Loon. Colymbus minor The Didapper or Dobchick Colymbus seu Podiripes cinereus The ash-coloured Loon. TAB LXII Colymbus maximus stellatus The greatest Speckled Diver or Loon Os cruris Colymbi The Leg bone of a Diver Colymbus Arcticus Lumme dictus Worm Ipeca guacu Majagué TAB LXIII Corvus aquaticus The Cormorant Graculus palmipes The Shagge Onocrotalus The Pelecane Anser Bassanus The Soland Goose TAB LXIV Mergus longiroster Alca Hoieri The Auk or Rasor-Bill Merganser The Goosander Mergus cirratus minor Albellus The Smew Mergus Bellonij TAB LXV Penguin Worm Alka Hoieri The Razor-bill or Auk Anas Arctica Clus. Lomivia Hoieri The Guillemot TAB LXVI Larus hijbernus The Coddy moddy Larus griseus maximus The great grey-Gull Larus albo-cinereus torque cinereo Larus cinereus rostro pedibus rubris The Pewit TAB LXVII Catarracta Aldrov Cepphus Aldrov Larus major cinereus Balt. Skua Hoieri TAB LXVIII Hirundo marina major The greater Sea Swallow Larus nigro-cinereus palustris Motacilla flava The yellow water wagtail Larus niger The Sacre-crow Larus cinereus Bellon The Tarrock Larus niger sidipes Hirundo marina minor The Lesser Sea Swallow TAB LXIX Cygnus The Swan Cygniferi caput An Elks head Brenta The Brent-goose Anser ferus The wild Goose TAB LXX Anser Canadensis The Canada Goose Tadorna Bellonij The Sheldrake Anas niger major The great black Duck. TAB LXXI Anser Gambensis The Gambo-goose Anser cygnoides The Swan-goose Tadorna Bellonij The Sheldrake or Burrough Duck. TAB LXXII Boschus major The wold Duck or Mallard The Gadwall or Gray Anas fera fusca Penelops veterum a Pochard Penelope Aldr The wigeon Anhinga Marggrav TAB L XX III. Anas caudacuta The Sea-Pheasant Capo rosso Anas fera fusca min. Anas Fuligula prima Gesn. Clangula aspera arteria Clangula Gesn. The Golden eye TAB LXXIIII Anas dypeata Germ. The Shoveler Anas niger minor The Scoter Querquedula The Teal Querquedula altera Garganey TAB LXXV Anser Domesticus The tame Goose Ipecati Apoa Anas Domestica The Common tame Duck Anas Moschata an Cairana Aldrov The Moscouy Duck. Anas rostro adunco The Hook-bill'd Duck TAB LXXVI Anas circia Gesu the Summer Teal Avis Tropicorum the Tropick bird Anas S. Cuthberti St. Cuthberts Duck. Larus cinercus minor the Common sea mew or Gull TAB LXXVII Cuculus Prior. the Cuckow Cornix cinerea frugilega the Royston Crow Montifringilla major the Greater Brandling Oedicnemus Bellon the stone Cerlew Manucodiata Rex Clus The King of birds of Paradise Nidi è ramulis suspensi The 2 Hang-nests The Rabihorcado TAB LXXVIII Anas marina caudâ forcipata The Swallow-taild Sheldrake Tamatia Marggravij An American Waterhen The Sheare-Water
its narcotic vertue yield themselves to be handled and taken out of the water by such as have their hands anointed with it Doubtless he that can get the Oyl of such an Osprey as they talk of may work wonders with it §. III. Of the BLACK EAGLE called Melanaëtus or Aquila Valeria WE saw a Bird of this kind kept shut up in a Cage in the Stadt-house of Middleburgh in Zealand It was double the bigness of a Raven but lesser than the Pygarg The Jaws and Eye-lids were bare of feathers and somewhat reddish The head neck and brest black In the middle of the back between the shoulders was a large triangular white spot dashed with red The rump red The lesser orders or rows of feathers in the Wings were of a Buzzard colour then followed a black stroak or bar cross the prime feathers after that a white one the remaining part of the feathers to the tips being of a dark ash-colour The Beak was less than that of the Pygarg black at the end then yellow as far as the Sear or skin covering its Base which was red The Eyes understand the Irides were of a hazel colour The Legs were feathered down but a little below the knees the naked part being red The Talons very long Those Birds which Aldrovandus hath set forth for Melanaëti or Black Eagles although they differ in some marks from this here described as for example in the blewish horny colour of the Beak in the dark ferrugineous colour of the crown of the head and neck and that their Legs are almost wholly covered with feathers scarce an inch remaining bare and that yellow yet I doubt not but they are of the same species there being in the Rapacious kind a great difference for the most part between Cock and Hen in point of magnitude and colour the colours also in the same Sex varying very much by age and other accidents Of the place of this Bird its food and manner of living building its Nest Eggs conditions c. we have nothing certain It is called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from its black colour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Leporaria from killing of Hares And in Latine Aquila Valeria from its strength and valour §. IV. Of the PYGARG or white-tail'd Eagle called Pygargus and Albicilla and by some Hinnularia IT is called Pygargus from the whiteness of its rump or train which word Gaza rendred in Latine Albicilla The Male which we described was for bigness not much inferiour to a Turkey It weighed eight pounds and an half it is like the Female in this as in other Birds of prey may be bigger and more weighty It s length from the tip of the Beak to the end of the train was two feet and nine Inches to the end of the Talons two feet and five inches The distance from tip to tip of the Wings stretcht out seven feet wanting but one inch or two yards and eleven Inches From the tip of the Beak to the Nosethrils was near two inches to the corners of the mouth three to the Eyes almost so much The breadth of the Beak an inch and a quarter the hooked part of the upper Mandible over-hanging the lower three quarters of an Inch. The Nosthrils oblique and half an Inch long The second or middle bone of the Leg was six inches and an half long the third or lowermost no more than three and an half The colour of the Beak was yellow and also of the Sear or skin covering its Basis as far as the Nosthrils In the Palate it had a Cavity equal to the Tongue The Tongue broad fleshly black at the tip The sides or edges of the Beak sharp The Eyes great withdrawn or sunk in the head overhung and defended by Eye-brows prominent like the Eves of a house The Irides of a pale Hazel colour in one Bird which we saw of this sort they were red in another yellow The feet were yellow in the soles were callous rough knobs or fleshy protuberances as in others of this kind The Talons large sharp and crooked that of the back-toe as generally in most Birds being greatest That of the middle toe an inch long the toe it self being two Inches The Head was pale or whitish the feathers being sharp-pointed and their shafts black The neck covered with narrow feathers the upper part thereof something red the Rump blackish else the whole body round of a dark ferrugineous colour The number of prime feathers in each Wing was about twenty six or twenty seven whereof the third and fourth were the longest the second shorter by half an inch than the third and the first by three inches and an half than the second The Wings when closed reached not to the end of the train Of the Pinion feathers and the rest of the flags they make Quils for Virginals and very good Writing Pens All the prime feathers of the Wings were black the lesser rows of the Wing-feathers had their edges of an ash-colour The tail was eleven inches and an half long made up of twelve feathers the upper or extreme part for above half way being white the lower black The extreme or outmost feathers were shortest the rest gradually longer to the middlemost It had a large Gall long Testicles small Guts having many revolutions and being by measure one hundred thirty two Inches or eleven foot long a small stomach above which the Gullet was dilated into a kind of bag granulated on the inside with many small protuberancies which I take to be glandules and which being squeezed a little yielded a kind of pap or slime serving it is like as a menstruum to help macerate the meat in the stomach It had a vast Craw small short Appendices or blind guts viz. not more than three quarters of an inch long This Bird shot dead by a certain Fowler we bought and described at Venice in the year 1664. and from the white ring about the tail denominated it Pygargus It differs from that we have entituled the Golden Eagle with a white ring about its tail chiefly in the colour of the Head and Beak So that I suspect it may be the same as also with the Golden Eagle of Aldrovandus notwithstanding the white colour of the train which perchance may alter with age yet it differs also from it in other accidents as for example in the yellow colour of the Beak If these three birds be not the same yet are they very like and near of kin to one another Perchance the only difference may be in Age or Sex The Pygargus of Aldrovandus seems to be a different kind which he describes in these words It is of a mean magnitude as big as a large Dunghil-Cock The Bill all over yellow hooked and bending by little and little from the very root to the utmost tip or