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SOME EARLY BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS 

 AND THEIR WORKS. 



BY 



W. H. MULLENS, m.a., ll.m., m.b.o.u. 



III.— CHRISTOPHER MERRETT 



(1614—1695). 



The first printed list of British Birds is that contained in the 

 " Pinax Rerum . . . Britannicarum " of Christopher Merrett, 

 or Merret. This small 8vo work was published in London in 

 1666, and was, as its name denotes {Pinax = a list, or index) 

 an attempt on Merrett' s part to catalogue the vegetables, 

 animals, and minerals, of Great Britain. Of the 223 pages 

 of which the book consists, 165 are devoted to botany, 42 to 

 zoology, and the remainder to minerals. In making his 

 list Merrett was content, at any rate as regards the birds, 

 to do little more than enumerate those which he considered 

 he had identified from the descriptions of Ulyses Aldrovandus, 

 whose twelve books on birds, largely founded on the work 

 of Gesner, appeared between 1599 and 1603, and of Johannes 

 Jonstonus, a Scotsman by descent, but by birth a Pole, the 

 first edition of whose " History of Birds " appeared in 1650.* 

 The Enghsh names are added in many cases, but the few short 

 notes are rarely original, and Merrett does not seem up to this 

 time to have devoted much personal attention to the observa- 

 tion or study of birds ; indeed, the chief object of his book 

 was to replace the " Phytologia " (London, 1 vol., 8vo) of 

 Wilham Howe (1620-1656) a "Flora" which had appeared 



* Merrett's references to Gesner and Belon, both, as authors, far 

 more accurate than the two above-mentioned, are, unfortunately, 

 but few. 



