340 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
doubt that they were mutually impressed by one another’s 
attainments. 
Gesner, for example, was careful to allude to Turner in after 
years in terms of sincere admiration. On quitting Zurich, the 
English traveller journeyed to Basle, and thence to Cologne. 
- During his residence in the latter city, in 1544, he printed the 
first ornithological work that the New Learning was destined to 
produce. Turner was still comparatively young, probably on the 
right side of forty, but his scholarly taste had already induced 
him to apply his critical skill to the difficult task of determining 
the particular species of birds described by Aristotle and Pliny. 
Accordingly, he entitled his little book, ‘Avium precipuarum 
quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et suc- 
cincta historia ex optimis quibusque scriptoribus contexta.’ 
Trifling as this may appear beside the ponderous tomes of 
Gesner and Aldrovandus, the fact remains that it forms no 
unimportant contribution to the science of the sixteenth century. 
Indeed, Gesner quoted every line that Turner printed, only 
adding the contents of such private letters as passed between his 
friend and himself in the interval between 1544 and 1555. It 
was, by the way, in 1550 that the Privy Council unsuccessfully 
nominated Turner for election as Provost of Oriel College, 
Oxford. The fact deserves notice, because Oriel was destined to 
be Gilbert White’s college. But however bitterly Turner may 
have felt the loss of this and other expected preferment, he found 
consolation in his zoological pursuits, and was always ready to 
amplify a previous statement from his latest experience. Thus 
he early pointed out the distinctions which appeared to separate 
the Black Kite (Milvus migrans) from the Red Kite (MM. ictinus), 
stating that the Kites which he had met with in Britain were 
larger and redder than the Kites which he had seen in Germany ; 
adding that, while the Red Kites frequented towns and cities, in 
which they became so bold as to snatch food out of the hands of 
children, the lesser and blacker species rarely appeared in the 
vicinity of towns. He is at pains to explain that, though he had 
very often seen the Black Kite in Germany (probably in the valley 
of the Rhine), he had never met with it in Great Britain. He 
returned to the subject in a later letter to Gesner, in which he 
makes the following statement (literally rendered) :—“ We have 
