turner] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
599 
title and in the Ejpistola Nuncupatoria thereof. This was to 
determine the principal kinds of birds named by Aristotle 
and Pliny in their writings. In addition to this, he also added 
copious notes on those which came under his own immediate 
observation, “ and in so doing he has produced the first book 
on birds which treats them in anything like a scientific spirit,” 
and not merely from a medical point of view. But the great 
value of Turner’s work consists in the fact that he is always 
most careful to tell us whether he observed the birds he 
describes in England or abroad, and it is for this reason that 
his comments are of such importance to the student of British 
ornithology. 
Turner was held in great estimation by Gesner, who quotes 
him freely in his writings, under the title of Turnerus Anglus 
(cf. Evans’s ed., p. xi, etc.). There is no evidence that Turner 
studied mammals, but he devoted much attention to the 
. study of ichthyology. We have been unable to trace the 
existence of any book by him on this subject, but Bale credits 
him with a work De Piscibus (1557) ; and he certainly con- 
templated one, as he informs us in the Preface to his Herbal , 
1568 : “So that I maye haue rest and quietnes in my olde age, 
and defence from my enemies, whiche haue more then these 
eight yeares continuallye troubled me verye muche, and holden 
me from my Booke, and sicknes wil suffer me, I extend to 
set out a Booke of the names and natures of fishes that are 
within youre Majesties dominions, to the great delite of noble 
men and profit of your hole Realme.” . . . He also supplied 
Gesner ( q.v .) with much information about the fishes of 
Great Britain. 
It only remains to add that the authentic books of this 
remarkable man, the father of British ornithology, number 
no less than thirty-nine, and to quote the description of him 
by John Ray : Vir solidae eruditionis et judicii. 
1544. Avivm | Praecipv | arvm, qvarvm | apvd Plinivm et Ari- | : 
stotelem mentio est, breuis & | succincta historia. | Ex optimis 
quibusque scripto- | ribus contexta, scholio illu | strata & aucta. | 
Adiectis nominibus Grsecis, Germanicis & | Britannicis. | Per Dn. 
