26 NOTES ON CERTAIN BIRDS 



nature though kept in a cage & fed with flesh. [Added 

 after in same hand but fresher ink] a kind of Lanius 

 [Lanius crossed out and written more distinctly under]. 



[p. 17 resumed.] A Dorhawke*^ or kind of Accipiter 

 muscarius conceiued to haue its name from feeding upon 

 flies & beetles, of a woodcock colour but paned like an 

 Hawke a very litle poynted bill, large throat, breedeth 

 with us & layes a maruellous handsome spotted egge. 

 Though I haue opened many I could neuer find any- 

 thing considerable in their mawes. caprimulgus. 



[Fol. 18.] Auis Trogloditica" or Chock - small bird 

 mixed of black & white & breeding in cony borrouges 



the Bearded Titmouse, afterwards known to Edwards as the Least Butcher 

 Bird. Browne certainly sent a drawing of this bird to Ray, who in his 

 "Collection of English words not generally used " (1674), as pointed 

 out by Mr. Gurney, mentions it as a " little Bird of a tawny colour on the 

 back, and a blew head, yellow bill, black legs, shot in an Osiar yard, 

 called by Sr. Tho. for distinction sake silerella," the drawing of which he 

 acknowledges he had received. Pennant, 1768 (" Brit. ZooL," i., p. 165), 

 follows Edwards ("Nat. Hist, of Birds," &c., 1745), who classes it with 

 the Laniida:, and it was not till long after, and as the result of much dis- 

 cussion, that it wa3 finally established as the only representative of a new 

 genus under the name of Panurus biarmicus. The local name is Reed 

 Pheasant, but Browne's name of Silerella seems an exceedingly appropriate 

 one. 



^'^ Browne seems to have been much interested in this remarkable bird, 

 and mentions it again in his second and third letters to Merrett, especially 

 in the latter ; he calls it Caprimulgus, but conceives it to be a kind of 

 Accipiter, Tnuscarius^ or cantharophagus, "in brief" [?] ^'' aids rostratula 

 gutturosa^ quasi coxanSf scarab^eis vescens^ sub vssperam volans^ ovum 

 speciossisimum excludens,'' a fair specimen of the descriptive method of 

 the time. Although he used the name Caprimulgus, it will be observed 

 that he does not mention the "vulgar error" which led to its being so 

 called. Merrett includes this species in the Pinax under the name of 

 "Caprimulgus, or the Goat-sucker," but in a letter to Browne tells him he 

 knows no Hawk called a Dorhawk. 



*^ The Wheatear is here referred to ; the name troglodilica would seem 

 to be more appropriate in this country, having reference to its habits of 

 nesting in " Cony borroughs," than that of cenantht, as applied to it by 

 those who knew it as frequenting the Continental vineyards. A name 

 still, or recently in use in West Norfolk, is Cony-chuck. 



