THE FIRST ENGLISH NATURALISTS 19 



of Birds (Historia Avium] was published in Latin at 

 Cologne in I544, 1 and is therefore earlier than Belon's 

 book of birds. The history contains here and there 

 among' passages culled from the ancients a sprightly 

 description of the feeding or nest-building of some 

 English bird, and furnishes evidence of the breeding 

 in our islands of birds which, like the crane, have long 

 been known to us only as rare visitants. Of the kite 

 Turner says that in the cities of England it used to 

 snatch the meat out of the hands of children. In his 

 day the osprey was better known to Englishmen than 

 they liked, for it emptied their fishponds ; anglers 

 used to mix their bait with its fat. Turner shows 

 not a little of that spirit of close observation which 

 in a later and more tranquil age shone forth in Gilbert 

 White. 



Dr. John Caius (the name is supposed to be a 

 Latinised form of Kay), the second founder of a great 

 Cambridge college, was physician in succession to 

 Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth ; in his youth he had 

 studied under Vesalius at Padua. Like Turner he was 

 a friend and correspondent of Gesner, for whom he 

 wrote an account of the dogs of Britain (De Canibus 

 Britannicis, printed in Latin in 1570), which attempts 

 to classify all the breeds, and to give some account of 

 the uses to which each was put. The list contains no 

 bull-dog, pointer, or modern retriever. There is a 

 water-spaniel, however, and dogs had already been 

 trained to retrieve game. The turnspit, which was not 

 a distinct breed (Caius calls it a mongrel), has long been 

 superseded. Curious antiquarian information, such as 

 mention of the weapons formerly used by sportsmen, 



1 It has now been made accessible to all readers by the reprint 

 and translation of Mr. A. H. Evans. 



