muffett] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
425 
edited with corrections and additions by another eminent 
physician, Christopher Bennet (1617-55). The original work 
is generally ascribed to the year 1595, and how much Bennet 
added to it is uncertain, but in all probability that portion 
of the book which contains the descriptions and observations 
of wild birds was Muffett’s work entirely. Muffett, we know 
for certain, was an able and enthusiastic naturalist ; his 
Insectorum sive minimum Animalium Theatrum, which was 
printed in 1634, was for long the leading work in that branch 
of zoology, while Bennet, though also known as an author , 1 
confined his labours to matters strictly medical. 
The fact that Muffett mentions more than one hundred 
different kinds of British birds, and that he wrote at a time 
when the printed matter relating to the ornithology of this 
country was meagre in the extreme, makes his book, quaint 
and instructive as it is otherwise, of very considerable im- 
portance to the student of early British ornithology. Most 
of our information on this subject, previous to the date of 
Muffett’s work, is derived from William Turner (1500-68), 
John Kay, or Caius (1510-73), and William Harrison (1534- 
1593). Of these Turner, whom Muffett quotes as “ old Dr. 
Turner,” is by far the most important. Of local works the 
only ones then published were Carew’s Survey of Cornwall 
(1602) and Drayton’s Poly-olbion (1613), in which the twenty- 
fifth song treats of Lincolnshire birds. 
Of the thirty-two chapters which comprise the contents 
of Muffett’s work two are devoted to wild birds. These 
are Nos. XI. and XII., and are respectively entitled “ Of 
the flesh of Wild Fowl, abiding and feeding chiefly on the 
Land,” and “ Of the flesh of Wild Fowl, abiding and feeding 
chiefly on the Waters.” These are, however, preceded by a 
chapter (No. X.) which treats “ Of the flesh of Tame Birds.” 
For a full account of Muffett’s life and writings, vide 
article by Mr. Mullens in British Birds , 1911, pp. 262-78. 
1655. Healths Improvement : | or, | Rules | Comprising and Discovering 
| The Nature, Method, and Manner of | Preparing all sorts of | 
1 Bennet published a treatise on Phthisis in 1634, under the name of Benedictus. 
