Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk Part 13

This letter is interesting also as filling a gap in Wilkin's series and I therefore reproduce it, omitting only occasional learned digressions which do not affect the subject. The original not being available, I have used the copy in the "Collectanea" before mentioned.

Dugdale, in November, 1658, and again later, had written to Browne, sending him a bone of a "fish which was taken up by Sir Robert Cotton, in digging a pond at the skirt of Conington downe," and asking his opinion thereof. (Wilkin, i., pp. 385 and 390.)

To the first of these letters Browne replied, under date of the 6th December, 1658, "I receaued the bone of the fish, and shall giue you some account of it when I have compared it with another bone which is not by mee" (op. cit. p. 387). The letter which follows and which was unknown to Wilkin supplies this information.

[p. 193.] "Sr I cannot sufficiently admire the ingenious industry of Sr Robert Cotton in preserving so many things of rarity and observation nor commend your own enquiries for the satisfaction of such particulars. The petrified bone you sent me, which with divers others was found underground, near Cunnington, seems to be the vertebra, spondyle or rackbone of some large fish, and no terrestrious animal as some upon sight conceived, as either of Camel, rhinoceros, or elephant, for it is not perforated and hollow but solid according to the spine of fishes in whom the spinal marrow runs in a channel above these solid racks, or spondiles.

"It seems much too big for the largest Dolphins, porpoises, or sword fishes, and too little for a true or grown whale, but may be the bone of some big cetaceous animal, as particularly of that which seamen call a Grampus; a kind of small whale, whereof some come short, some exceed twenty foot. And not only whales but Gramp.u.s.s.es have been taken in this Estuarie or mouth of the fenland rivers. And about twenty years ago four were run ash.o.r.e near Hunstanton and two had young ones after they came to land. But whether this fish were of the longitude of twenty foot (as is conceived) some doubt may be made for this bone containeth little more than an inch in thickness, and not three inches in breadth so that it might have a greater number thereof than is easily allowable to make out that longitude. For of the whale which was cast upon our coast about six years ago a vertebra or rackbone still preserved, containeth a foot in breadth and nine inches in depth, yet the whale with all advantages but sixty-two foot in length. [p, 194.] We are not ready to believe that, wherever such relics of fish or sea animals are found, the sea hath had its course. And Goropius Beca.n.u.s[131] long ago could not digest that conceit when he found great numbers of sh.e.l.ls upon the highest Alps. For many may be brought unto places where they were not first found.

[131] This seems to refer to the "De Gigantibus eorumque reliquiis"

of J. van Gorp, Jean Becan, or Joannes Goropius (as the name is variously given in the "Biographie Universelle" (b. 1518, d. 1572), and apparently published after the Author's death by Jean Cha.s.sanion, 8vo, Basileae, 1580, and another edition in 1587. See Brit. Mus. Cat.; but I have not seen the book.

"Some bones of our whale were left in several fields which when the earth hath obscured them, may deceive some hereafter, that the sea hath come so high. In northern nations where men live in houses of fishbones and in the land of the Icthiophagi near the Red sea where mortars were made of the backbones of whales, doors of their jaws, and arches of their ribs, when time hath covered them they might confound after discoverers....

"For many years great doubt was made concerning those large bones found in some parts of England, and named Giants' bones till men [p. 195]

considered they might be the bones of elephants brought into this island by Claudius, and perhaps also by some succeeding emperors [then follow other ancient examples of the finding 'elephants bones' in various countries attributed to similar modes of introduction]. But many things prove obscure in subterraneous discovery....

"In some chalk pits about Norwich many stag's horns are found of large beams and branches, the solid parts converted into a chalky and fragile substance, the pithy part sometimes hollow and full of brittle earth and clay. In a churchyard of this city an oaken billet was found in a coffin. About five years ago an humourous man of this country after his death and according to his own desire was wrap't up in a horned hide of an ox and so buried.[T] Now when the memory hereof is past how this may hereafter confound the discoverers and what connjectures will arise thereof it is not easy to conjecture.

[T] Richard Ferrer, of Thurne, by his will, proved about 1654, directed that his "dead body be handsomely trussed up in a black bullock's hide, and be decently buried in the Churchyard of Thurne."--"Norfolk Archaeology," v., p. 212.

Sr Your servant to my power,

THO. BROWNE."

This is endorsed "Sr Thomas Browne's discourse about the Fish bone found at Conington Com. Hunt, Shown, Dr. Tanner."

APPENDIX C.

[SLOANE MS. ADDITIONAL 5233, LARGE FOLIO, IS A VOLUME LABELLED "DR. EDW.

BROWN'S DRAWINGS."]

"Some original drawing of Towns, Castles, Antiquities, Medals &c. by Dr. Edward Browne in his Travels & presented by his Father Sir Thomas Browne. Who hath write upon sev^{ll} of them what they are."

The above is the inscription written on the fly-leaf of this volume, which I hoped might have contained some drawings of birds or fishes by Sir Thomas Browne, but there is nothing in it of interest from a Natural History point of view. In Wilkin's Catalogue of the MSS. (Vol. iv., p.

476) it is described as "a collection of very curious drawings (some coloured) of public buildings, habits, _fishes_, mines, rocks, tombs, and other antiquities, observed by Sir Thos. and Dr. Edward Browne in their travels," but there are no fishes, birds, or other animals in the volume.

APPENDIX D.

Draft of a letter from Sir Thomas Browne to his daughter Elizabeth, enclosing two pictures of a Stork. This and the next letter are in the Bodleian Library (MS. Rawl. D. cviii.)

[_Fol. 70._] This is a picture of the stork [_see Note 14_] I mentiond in my last. b.u.t.t it is different from the co[=m]on stork by red lead colourd leggs and bill[132] and the feet hath not vsuall sharp poynted clawes b.u.t.t resembling a mans nayle, such as Herodotus discribeth the white Ibis of aegypt to haue. The ends of the wings are black & when shee doth not spred them they make all the lower part of the back looke black, b.u.t.t the fethers on the back vnder them are white as also the tayle. it fed upon snayles & froggs b.u.t.t a toad being offered it would not touch it. the tongue is about half an inch long. the quills of the wing are as bigge or bigger then a swans quills. it was shott by the seaside & the wing broake. Some there were who tooke it for an euell omen saying If storks come ouer into England, G.o.d send that a co[=m]onwealth doth not come after.[U]

[132] Browne evidently was not very familiar with the Stork, which is not surprising, seeing that it is a very rare bird in Britain; it may be that he had only seen the bird in its immature stage, for the "red-lead" hue of the legs is very characteristic of the adult bird. [_See also Note 14_, p. 10.]

[U] In reference to the Dutch fable of those days that Storks would only inhabit republican countries.

That picture with the lesser head is the better.

MS. RAWL. D. cviii.

Draft of a letter containing further particulars with regard to the Stork. There is nothing to indicate to whom it was addressed.

[_Fol. 77._] A kind of stork was shott in the wing by the sea neere Hasburrowe & brought aliue vnto mee. it was about a yard high red lead coloard leggs and bill. the clawes resembling human nayles such as Herodotus describeth in the white Ibis of aegypt The lower parts of the wings are black which gathered up makes the lower part of back looke black b.u.t.t the tayle vnder them is white as the other part of the body.

it fed readily upon snayles & froggs, b.u.t.t a toad being offered it would not touch it: the tongue very short [not _crossed out_] an inch long. it makes a clattering noyse by flapping one bill agaynst the other somewhat like the platea or shouelard.[V] the quills [about _crossed out_] of the biggnesse of swans bills [_sic_ quills?] when it swallowed a frogge it was sent downe into the stomak by the back side of the neck as was perceaued upon swallowing. I could not b.u.t.t take notice of the conceitt of some who looked upon it as an ill omen saying if storks come ouer into England, pray G.o.d a co[=m]on wealth do not come after.

[V] The Spoonbill.

In addition to these letters there are in the Bodleian Library a letter from Elizabeth Browne to her brother, describing the above-mentioned Stork, and desiring him to keep one of the two pictures himself, and to give the other to his sister Fairfax (MS. Rawl. D. 108, fol. 71), and a draft of a letter from Sir Thomas Browne about a remarkable fly (_see ante_ p. 68 _and Note 110_), which offended the cattle extraordinarily, found at Horsey Marshes (MS. Rawl. D. 108, fol. 103). There is also (MS.

Rawl. D. 391, fol. 55) a letter from Sir Hamon le Strange to Sir T. B., dated Jan. 16, 1653. About half this letter is printed by Wilkin, i., pp. 369-70. He mentions towards the end that he sends certain observations on T. B.'s "Enquiries into Common Errors," at page "27 thereof I write of a whale cast upon my sh.o.a.re." This criticism is now separated from the letter, which originally covered it, but happily is preserved in the British Museum, MS. Sloane, 1839. fols. 104-145.