Recently published Ornithological Works. 519 
dweller in '^ the Shires/' or even outside of this country, as 
by a truly Norfolk man. Most British ornithologists must 
have heard of, or even seen reference made to^ the observations 
in Natural History by the celebrated author of the * Religio 
Medici/ the '^ Hydro taphia,' and the ' Pseudodoxia Epidemica^ 
or Vulgar Errors ; but few have had the patience to dig them 
out from the four-volume edition of his collected works by 
Wilkin, or the smaller reprint in three volumes issued some 
ten years later, in which these observations lie buried. 
Moreover, when found they obviously needed more anno- 
tating than they had received, though it must be allowed 
that comparatively few errors of commission had been made 
by their then Editor and his friends. 
The original cast of mind so characteristic of all Browne's 
greater works is just as clearly shewn in these "^diversions 
of his pen ^' — the phrase applied by one of his early editors 
to his ' Miscellany Tracts/ — and is as true of the one as of 
the other. Indefatigably as he pursued his profession, he 
seems never to have let slip an opportunity for observation, 
and hence we have in this little volume a very large pro- 
portion of facts recorded for the first time. True it is that 
the most important of them have been copied, or at least 
mentioned, by later writers ; but that does not detract from 
the interest with which they are here to be read in Browne^s 
own words, and, thanks to Mr. Southwell's care, in Browne's 
own spelling. 
There can be no doubt that, though it was not for 
Merrett's information that Browne first began to set down 
these notes, he continued them with the object of their 
serving that author in a revised edition of his ' Pinax Berum 
Naturalium ' — the book which contains the earliest list of 
British Birds. For some reason, which is not clear, that 
revised edition never appeared, and great is our loss in 
consequence, for it must be remarked that what we have 
here is not the fair copy of the Notes sent to Merrett, but 
only the draughts or rough copy. The same may be said 
to some extent of the Letters, and it is possibly from that 
cause that the handwriting is so terribly hard to read, and 
