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SOME EARLY BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS 

 AND THEIR WORKS. 



BY 



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



v.— ROBERT PLOT (1641— 1696) 

 AND SOME Early County Natural Histories. 



In the year 1661, Joshua Childrey (1623—1670), antiquary, 

 schoolmaster, and divine, pubHshed in London a small 

 duodecimo work entitled " Britannia Baconia : / or, the 

 Natural / Rarities / of / England, Scotland, & Wales." This 

 book, although of no particular value in itself, being merely 

 a brief and somewhat imperfect compilation, was nevertheless 

 destined to be of some considerable influence on the hterature 

 of natural history in this country. For, according to Wood's 

 " Athenae Oxonienses " (p. 339), it inspired Robert Plot 

 (1641 — 1696), the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at 

 Oxford, with the idea of writing the " Natural History of 

 Oxfordshire," which appeared in 1677, and which was followed 

 in 1686 by a " Natural History of Staffordshire," the work of 

 the same author ; who is said to have also contemplated 

 similar histories of Middlesex and Kent. These two works of 

 Robert Plot's also proved in their turn to be the forerunners 

 of a numerous series of county natural histories by different 

 writers. 



The full title of the " Natural History of Oxfordshire " 

 is as follows : — 



" The / Natural History / of / Oxford-shire, / being an Essay 

 toward the Natural History / of / England. / By R.P., LL.D. / 

 [quotation from Arat. in Phaenom.] / [engraving] Printed at 

 the Theater in Oxford, and are to be had there : / And in 

 London at Mr. S. Millers, at the Star near the / West-end of 



