276 BRITISH BIRDS. 



All Essay Toivards the probable Solution of this Question — 

 whence come the Stork and the Turtle, the Crane and the 

 Swallow, . . . or where those Birds do probably make 

 their recess and Abode, which are absent from our climate 

 at some certain Times and Seasons of the Year (1 vol. 12mo., 

 London, 1703), suggesting as his " probable solution " 

 that migratory birds on leaving this country retreated to 

 the moon ! 



Muffett's description of the " Wild Doves " is also 

 well worthy of notice ; not only does he correctly dis- 

 tinguish the four kinds, but he gives an excellent account 

 of the Rock Dove, a bird unknown to Willughby, who 

 merely mentions it on the authority of his correspondent, 

 Mr. Ralph Johnson, of Greta Bridge in Yorkshire (The 

 Ornithology, p. 186). 



The Hoopoe, moreover, seems to be first mentioned as a 

 British bird in Healths Improveinent. Turner wrote, 

 " nowhere in the whole of Britain is the Upupa to be found 

 (so far as I know^)," and although the credit of including 

 this handsome bird in the British list is generally attributed 

 to Christopher Merrett (Pinax Rerum, 1666), it of right 

 belongs to Thomas Muffett. 



It must be admitted on the other hand that the informa- 

 tion afforded in Healths Improvement concerning the 

 water-birds is very meagre, a circumstance which no 

 doubt arose from Muffett's observations being principally 

 made in the inland county of Wilts. 



Our author, whose name has been indifferently spelt 

 Moffett, Moufet, Muffet, or Muffett, was born in 1553, 

 in the parish of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch. He appears 

 to have been of Scottish descent, and was the second 

 son of Thomas Muffett, citizen and haberdasher of London, 

 his mother being Afice Ashley of Kent. Muffett was 

 educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and became a 

 pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, in May, 1567, 

 migrating three years later to Caius College, where he 

 took his degree of B.A. At Cambridge Muffett studied 

 medicine under the illustrious John Caius, himself a 



