108 MEMOIR OF 



drawn with curiosity and exactness by an excel- 

 lent hand, the which, fowl, fishes, and insects, 

 the said Baltner had himself taken and described 

 at his own proper charges, and caused to be 

 drawn. Secondly, at Nuremberg, in Germany, 

 he bought a large volume of pictures of birds 

 drawn in colors. Thirdly, he caused divers species, 

 as well seen in England as beyond seas, to be 

 drawn by good artists. Besides what he left, 

 the deservedly famous Sir Thomas Brown, Pro- 

 fessor of Physick in the city of Norwich, frankly 

 communicated the draughts of several rare birds, 

 with some brief notes and descriptions of them. 

 Out of these, and the printed figures of Aldro- 

 vandus and Pet. Olina, an Italian author, we 

 called out those we thought most natural and 

 resembling the life for the gravers to imitate, add- 

 ing also all but one or two of Marggravius's, and 

 some out of Clasius his exotics, Piso his Natural 

 History of the West Indies, and Bontius his of 

 the East." Then follows a statement of the 

 reason why " the sculps" were not so good as 

 they might have been ; namely, the distance of 

 the editor from the press."* 



* The plates were engraved at the expense of Mr 

 Willughby's widow, and are better in the Latin edition 

 than in the English, chiefly, however, in consequence of 

 the superior nature of the ink used in the former edition. 

 Both editions seem to have been made from the same 

 plates. Still, even these, as contrasted with far less 

 expensive representations of animals so abundant in the 

 present day, shew the wonderful improvement made in 



