VOL. xv.J REVIEW. 16:} 



crooked scoop with which the Dutch mariners tlirew up water to wet 

 their sails." 



The rest of the Latin passage may be thus translated : " On the 

 approach of winter they congregate in flocks on the western coasts 

 of England and after a month or two disperse to shores perchance 

 less vexed with cold. In my youth I have killed no small number of 

 these birds with small leaden shot on the banks of the River Severn." 



Sir Thomas Browne (1605--82) in that same year (1668) 

 writing to Dr. Merrett* from Norfolk says : — 



" A Shoeing-horn or Barker from the figure of the bill and barking 

 note, a long made bird of white and blackish colour, finne footed, a 

 marsh bird and not rare, some times of the yeare in Marshland, it may 

 upon vewe be called Recurvirostra nostras or Avosetta, much resembling 

 the Avosettae species : in Johnstonust tab. (54). I send you the head 

 in a picture." 



[For other allusions to the Avocet by Browne of. Notes and 

 Letters on Nat. Hist, of Norfolk, by T. Southwell, London, 

 1902.] 



Robert Plot (1641-96) in his Natural History of Staffordshire, 

 Oxford, 1686, p. 231, informs us that 



" of whole footed water foule the Avosetta Italorum or Recurvirostra, 

 is also found here, as well as in the Eastern parts of Norfolk and 

 Suffolk, there having been of them killed at the Black Lakes near 

 Aqualat, eight of them being seen first in the morning, and but six at 

 night when th(;y shot : which needs no other description, but that its 

 bill is reflext upward, which is peculiar to this bird, ending in a thin 

 slender weak point somewhat of the consistence and strength of a 

 whale- bone of the same size." 



From this somewhat cr3/ptic passage, which he does not 

 quote, Newton in his Dictionary of Birds deduces the proba- 

 bilit}^ that the bird bred in Staffordshire. J 



In Gough's edition of Camden's " Britannia," t8o6. Vol. II., 

 p. 381 (wrongly quoted by Yarrell as p. 271), the following 

 occurs under Lincolnshire : - - 



"Opposite to Fosdyke Wasli, during summer, are vast numbers of 

 Avosettas, called there Yelpers, from their cry as they hover over 

 the sportsman's head like Lapwings." 



Auk, Great {Alca impennis), vide British Birds, Vol. XV., 

 No. 5, p. 98. 



Belon, Pierre. — Belon is mentioned on p. 155 of the 

 Annals as the author of Historie de la Nature des Oysseaux, 

 bat no reference is made to his Observations des Plusieurs 

 Singularities, 1551, which contains several passages concerning 



* Christopher Merrett (1614-1695), author of Pinax Renini, London, 

 1666. The first printed work to contain a list of British birds. 



f Johannes Jonstonus (1603-73) author of Historia Naliiralis, 1650. 



X Other early references to the Avocet will be found in Willughby 

 and Pennant, but as these are easily accessible they are not quoted. 



