NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 73 
“We also saw certain choice birds which are fattened for sale. Amongst 
the rest one called Godwit, that is to say, Dei ingenium, which is wonder- 
fully commended, so that at Wisbech, where provisions are very cheap, the 
bird-feeder said he sold these birds for five or six English halfpence (solidis) 
—equal to fifty or sixty French—apiece, but when he took them to London 
he brought back twenty English pence for each. The bird is the size of a 
small Partridge, or even less. Its colour is grey, and it has a bill longer than 
my middle finger stretched out. The flesh when cooked is dark as is that of 
marsh-birds. I ate it at the Lord Bishop’s table, and did not think highly 
of it: I do not see the reason why it is so greatly preferred to the Otus.” * 
What this Otus was may be discovered from another passage 
in the same journal :— 
“ Bliterre aves. Ott vel Otides. 
“Tn the Ely country there is a bird about as big as a hen, in colour a 
mixture of yellow and grey, &e., having very long legs, and called Bliterra. 
It is said to be in the habit of introducing its bill into one of the nearest 
reeds, and of thundering forth a voice so horrible that those unused to the 
thing say it is that of an evil spirit, and so loud that two gentlemen assured 
me it could be heard for three or four miles. It is not agreeable meat. 
“The Otus or Otis, indeed, is a bird less than a Partridge, and a mimic, 
wont to be beguiled and caught by silly imitation. Great men and kings 
are keen in the chase of this bird. It furnishes very delicate meat, if my 
palate is sufficiently instructed. I have also seen them alive. They say 
that if the fowler lifts one of his feet the bird does the same, if he extends 
an arm the bird extends a wing, and imitates all his actions.” + 
The Blterra is, of course, the Bittern, and the fable of its 
booming, “with bill engulpht,” is a very old one, perpetuated even 
by Thomson in the last century, though Drayton, in the extract 
from his ‘ Polyolbion’ (written about this time), which our authors 
most properly quote (pp. 867, 368), seems to have been superior 
toit. But the Otus or Otis of Casaubon, as every ornithologist 
will perceive, cannot be anything else than the Dotterel,{ and his 
statement as to its capture by kings is curiously corroborated 
by what we know from another source to have been one of the 
“sports” of James I. in the preceding year, for which we must 
* «Ephemerides Isaaci Casauboni,’ &c, (Ed. Jon. Russell, ii., pp. 867, 868). 
+ Op. cit., p. 873. 
t Mr. Pattison, not being an ornithologist, naturally falls into the mistake ot 
thinking it was a Bustard (op. cit. p. 391). We may also remark that for the same 
reason Mr. Russell in the penultimate passage prints “ Godwie” for “‘ Godwit,” thereby 
failing to explain Casaubon’s ingenious Latin translation of its name. 
ih 
