LETTERS TO MERRETT. 83 



this is also rufifus butt the head sad red."^ wee haue a 

 kind of teale which some fowlers call crackling teale from 

 the noyse it maketh^^ it is almost of the bignesse of a 

 duck coming late of the yeare & latest going away hath 

 a russet head & neck with a dark yellow stroak about a 

 quarter of an inch broad from the crowne to the bill 

 winged like a teale a white streake through the middle 

 of the wings and edges thereof the tale blackish, it may 

 be calld Querquedula maior serotina. I send you the 

 figure in litle of a pristis"" w*^'' I receaued from a yarmouth 

 seaman, you may please to compare it w"" yours, the 

 asper you mention is much like our Rough or Aspredo. 



I forgot in my last to signifie that an oter [an other ?] 

 Elk or wild swan was headed like a goose that is 

 without any knobb at the bottome of the bill. [See 

 p. 80 and Note 8.] 



Haue you had the duck called Clangula in Aid. 

 [drovandus] & Johnst.^^' wee haue one heere w'^'' 



1^ Professor Newton suggests that Browne intended to write Mergus 

 cirratus. Aldrovandus figures the head, iii., p. 283, and that ol M. longi- 

 rostris in the preceding page. Tliis last is copied by Jonston (fol. 47). 

 Both birds seem to be female or immature Goosanders. Neither author has 

 a M. cristatus. 



^^ The above description certainly applies to the Common Teal, which 

 was well-known to Browne {vide supra, p. 14), and that species is with us all 

 the year ; I cannot help thinking, however, that he had in his mind the 

 Garganey, or Summer Teal, so called from the season of its visit to us. 

 This species is known to the Norfolk gunners as the " Cricket Teal," and 

 being slightly larger than the common species it might well be called by 

 him " Querqtiedula major serotina.'" 



^^ See Note 55, p. 36. It will be noticed that both this and the 

 Centriscus mtTi.'i\o-at& at p. 41 were given to Browne by a "seaman of 

 these seas," but may possibly have been brought home as curiosities from 

 a foreign.voyage ; the Saw-fish, however, mentioned at p. 36, is distinctly 

 stated to have been "taken about Lynn." It is a matter of intense regret 

 that the numerous drawings mentioned in these letters should have been 

 lost. 



1^ Aldrovandus's figure of "Clangula'' (head only, iii., p. 224) is too 

 indefinite for determination. He says the feet are yellow, but Jonston, 



