Recently j^uhlished Ornithological Works. 519 



dweller in " the Shires/' or even outside of this country, as 

 by a truly Norfolk man. Most British ornithologists must 

 have heard of, or even seen reference made to, the observations 

 in Natural History by the celebrated author of the ' Religio 

 Medici/ the ' Hydrotaphia/ and the 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica^ 

 or Vulgar Errors; but few have had the patience to dig them 

 out from the four-volume edition of his collected works by 

 Wilkin, or the smaller reprint in three volumes issued some 

 ten years later, in which these observations lie buried. 

 Moreover, when found they obviously needed more anno- 

 tating than they had received, though it must be allowed 

 that comparatively few errors of commission had been made 

 by their then Editor and his friends. 



The original cast of mind so characteristic of all Browne^s 

 greater works is just as clearly shewn in these '^diversions 

 of his pen ■" — the phrase applied by one of his early editors 

 to his ' Miscellany Tracts/ — and is as true of the one as of 

 the other. Indefatigably as he pursued his profession, he 

 seems never to have let slip an opportunity for observation, 

 and hence w^e have in this little volume a very large pro- 

 portion of facts recorded for the first time. True it is that 

 the most important of them have been copied, or at least 

 mentioned, by later writers ; but that does not detract from 

 the interest with which they are here to be read in Browne^s 

 own words, and, thanks to Mr. SouthwelFs care, in Browne^s 

 own spelling. 



There can be no doubt that, though it was not for 

 Merrett's information that Browne first began to set down 

 these notes, he continued them with the object of their 

 serving that author in a revised edition of his ' Pinax Rerum 

 Naturalium ' — the book which contains the earliest list of 

 British Birds. For some reason, which is not clear, that 

 revised edition never appeared, and great is our loss in 

 consequence, for it must be remarked that what we have 

 here is not the fair copy of the Notes sent to Merrett, but 

 only the draughts or rough copy. The same may be said 

 to some extent of the Letters, and it is possibly fi'om that 

 cause that the handwriting is so terribly hard to read, and 



