74 
SIR THOMAS BROWNE AS A NATURALIST. 
Life,’ pp. 3, 21, Thomson). P. Belon and G. Rondelet (Rondeletius), 
both living in the sixteenth century, remained standard authorities 
on Ichthyology for nearly a hundred years. Both, especially the 
latter, are frequently referred to by Browne. See ‘ Study of Fishes ’ 
(Gunther). Harvey had discovered the circulation of the blood 
when Thomas Browne was still in his teens. 
The Royal Society ivas incorporated in 1662, and in the list 
of members of the Council occurs John Evelyn’s name. Evelyn was 
a friend of Browne’s, and we find in his diary in 1671, he “went 
to see Sir T. Browne (with whom I had some time corresponded 
by letter, though I had never seen him before) his whole house 
and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the 
best collections, especially medals, books, plants, and natural things. 
Amongst other curiosities, Sir T. had a collection of the eggs of all 
the fowl and birds he could procure, that county (especially the 
promontory of Norfolk) being frequented, as he said, by several 
kinds which seldom or never go farther into the land, as cranes, 
storks, eagles, and variety of water-fowl.” 
In one of his letters (Sloane MS. 1847, p. 182) Browne writing 
to a correspondent who had applied to him for information, regrets 
that he had not done so three years before as his assistants some- 
times “ fell upon animalls scarce to be met with agayne,” adding 
“ I had about fortie hanging up in my howse well the plague being 
at the next doores the person intrusted in my howse, burnt or 
threw away.” 
The first work of Browne’s, dealing partly with natural history, 
is the ‘Pseudodoxia Epidemica,’ published in 1646, now known as 
the ‘Vulgar Errors.’ 
The ‘Vulgar Errors’ is an invaluable help to the student of 
scientific thought in the seventeenth century, but it would be out 
of place here to analyze it. Perhaps the word “ common ” would 
more nearly convey the meaning of his word “ Epidemica ” to our 
ears, than vulgar. Many of these “Errors” appear most extraordinary 
to us, but the student of folk-lore may still find, in out-of-the-way 
corners, some very curious beliefs or “conceits,” as a Norfolk 
labourer would, and as Sir T. Browne did, call them. But 
the ‘Vulgar Errors’ was written for men of education, by one, 
and so affords a good index of the way in which natural phenomena 
were viewed at that period. 
