32 NOTES ON CERTAIN FISHES, ETC., 



Pliny seemes to short in the estimate of their number 

 in the ocean, who recons up butt one hundred & 

 seventie six species, butt the seas being now farther 

 known & searched [xts verso] Bellonius much enlargeth. 



and in his booke of Birds thus deliuereth himself 

 allthough I think it impossible to reduce the same vnto 

 a certain number yet I may freelie say that tis beyond 

 the power of man to find out more than fine hundred 

 sorts [kinds written above] of fishes three hundred sorts 

 of birds more than three hundred sorts of fourfoted 

 animalls and fortie diversities of serpents.^" 



[SLOANE MSS. 183O, FOL. 23-38.] 



\Fol. 23.J Of fishes sometimes the larger sort are 

 taken or come ashoar. A spermaceti whale" of 62 foote 

 long neere Welles, another of the same kind 20 yeares 

 before at Hunstanton. & not farre of 8 or nine came 



™ This estimate of the number of species of birds and fishes existing is 

 amusing in the light of the present knowledge of the subject. Of course 

 any such estimate can only be approximate, and open to constant emenda- 

 tion ; but according to a statement in the " Zoological Record " of 1896, 

 it was believed that there were something like 386,000 described species : 

 2,500 of which are mammals, 12,500 birds, 4,400 reptilia and batrachia, 

 12,000 fishes, 50,000 mollusca, 20,000 Crustacea, and 250,000 insecta ; the 

 smaller divisions I have omitted. And whereas only about 10,000 species 

 of plants were known to Linnaeus, Professor Vines in his address to the 

 Botanical section at the Bradford meeting of the British Association, 1900, 

 states that the approximate number of recognised plants at present existing 

 is 175,596 ; but this is far short of the total of existing species. Professor 

 Saccardo states that there are 250,000 fungi alone, and that the number of 

 existing species in other groups would bring the total up to over 400,000. 



*' In the muniment room at Hunstanton Hall there exists a book of 

 MSS. notes relating to their estates, kept by Sir Hamon and Sir Nicholas 

 le Strange, between the years 1612 and 1723. From this book Mr. 

 Hamon le Strange has been good enough to send me an extract containing 

 the full particulars of the stranding and disposal of a Sperm Whale 57 feet 

 long, which came ashore on their Manor of Holme, on the 6th December, 

 1626, the skull of which is still in the courtyard at Hunstanton Hall. 



Browne had not come to reside in Norwich at that time, and the chapter 



