SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 197 
1653. LEONHARD BALDNER. 
Leonhard Baldner was a fowler and river fisherman at 
Strasburg, whose paintings of the birds of his native Rhine, 
together with a written account of them, were bought by 
Francis Willughby, when passing with John Ray and Philip 
Skippon through that city in 1663, see ‘“‘ The Ornithology ” 
(Preface et seq.).- At Nuremberg Willughby also bought a 
volume of bird pictures, still in existence at Wollaton Hall, 
Notts, the residence of Lord Middleton, where his collection 
of medals is also preserved. Baldner’s paintings, fresh as 
when the colour was laid on, are still in the British Museum, 
bound in a book, only twelve inches by eight, together with a 
translation of his notes, made from the German for Willughby 
after his return to England.* Full justice has been done 
to the Strasburg fisherman by Robert Lauterborn, by whom 
his work was printed and edited in 1903.+ Lauterborn 
enumerates other copies of the Baldner MS8., with paintings, 
of which one in Cassel, containing a hundred and fifty coloured 
drawings, is stated to be the most perfect, but the English 
copy in the British Museum is the earliest known, the preface 
to it being dated Dec. 31st, 1653. The following is a list of 
Baldner’s plates numbered according to the London copy, with 
some (translated) extracts from his remarks. 
1. Mute Swan. 
Black-throated Diver. 
“This great See-flutter I shot the 12th of December 
1649” (MS.). 
3. Pink-footed Goose. The description better applies 
to a Bean Goose. 
4. Brent Goose. ‘‘I had two the 27th February, 1649, 
they are altogether unknown in our country ” (MS.). 
See Ray’s comment in “ The Ornithology,” p. 360. 
5. Cormorant. 
6. Red-breasted Merganser. 
7. Goosander. 
bo 
* Addl. MS. 6485 and MS. 6486. 
+ “Das Vogel- Fisch- und Thierbuch des Strassburger Fischers. 
Leonhard Baldner, aus dem Jahre 1666.’ Edited with an introduction by 
Robert Lauterborn, 1903. This volume is the subject of an excellent article 
by Dr. Hans Gadow in the “ Field ’’ of Oct. 26th, 1907. 
