among us which are not described; and therefore such which you cannot well reduce, may (if at all) be set down after the exacter nomination of small birds as yet of uncertain class of knowledge."

I must ask pardon for this digression, but my object has been to show the difficulties Browne had to contend with and to emphasise the originality which pervades all his observations, a characteristic so conspicuously absent in the work of most of his predecessors. I should like also to call attention to his references to the migratory habits of many species of birds, a phenomenon attracting little notice in his day, but one which can be so readily observed on the coast of Norfolk. These remarks were penned at a time when hibernation in a state of torpidity was thoroughly believed in—an idea of which even Gilbert White a hundred years later could not thoroughly divest himself. In his tract on "Hawks and Falconry," Browne further says: "How far the hawks, merlins, and wild-fowl which come unto us with a north-west [east?] wind in Autumn, fly in a day, there is no clear account: but coming over the sea their flight hath been long or very speedy. For I have known them to light so weary on the coast, that many have been taken with dogs, and some knocked down with staves and stones." Further than this, he knew the seasons of their appearing—the Hobby "coming to us in the spring," the Merlin "about autumn." His frequent mention of anatomical peculiarities and of his dissections of many birds and beasts clearly prove his passion for original research, and the frequent records of the contents of the stomachs of the birds which he had the opportunity of examining was a mode of obtaining exact information as to the nature of their food, which I imagine was not common in those days.

How highly Browne was esteemed by his contemporaries may be judged from the acknowledgments of his assistance by Dugdale, Evelyn (who visited him in Norwich in 1671), and others; and Ray especially mentions his indebtedness to "the deservedly famous Sir Thomas Browne, Professor of Physic in the City of Norwich." His letters to his son, Dr. Edward Browne, are full of instructions as to the course of study he should pursue, and subsequently, when the latter became celebrated and was appointed Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, it was still to his father that he looked for advice in his hospital practice and in the preparation of his lectures. Browne was proud of his adopted county, a feeling evidently shared by his son, and I trust I may be pardoned for quoting the concluding passage of the latter's account of a tour into Derbyshire, wherein he expresses a sentiment which survives with undiminished force in the breast of many a Norfolk man in the present day. There is a very interesting account of his crossing the Wash on leaving Lynn for Boston, but on his return to Norwich in September, 1662, he thus concludes his journal: "Give me leave to say this much: let any stranger find mee out so pleasant a country, such good way [roads], large heath, three such places as Norwich. Yar [Yarmouth] and Lin [Lynn], in any county of England, and I'll bee once again a vagabond to visit them."

The manuscripts of which the following selection forms a part are contained, with a few exceptions to be named hereafter, in the Sloane Collection in the Library of the British Museum, consisting of nearly one hundred volumes, numbered 1825 to 1923 both inclusive. A catalogue is given by Simon Wilkin[D] (himself a Norfolk man), by whom Browne's collected writings were first published in a connected form, as already mentioned, under the title of "Sir Thomas Browne's Works, including his Life and Correspondence, edited by Simon Wilkin, F.L.S. London, William Pickering. Josiah Fletcher, Norwich, 1836." 4 volumes, 8vo; the first volume only is dated 1836, Vols. 2, 3, and 4 being dated 1835.[E] It was here that the Notes and Letters were first given to the public. A second edition of the "Works," also edited by Wilkin, in three closely printed volumes, was issued in Bohn's Antiquarian Library in 1852. In the first edition the Notes on the Birds and Fishes will be found in Vol. IV., pp. 313 to 336, and the letters to Merrett in Vol. I., pp. 393 to 408. In the second edition both are in Vol. III., pp. 311 to 335 and pp. 502 to 513 respectively. The references here, as a rule, will be made to the 1836 edition, when otherwise Bohn's edition will be specified.

The foot-notes in Wilkin's edition, many of them very curious, initialled "Wr.," are by Dr. Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor (father of the Architect of St. Paul's Cathedral), and were found on the margins of a copy of the first edition of the Pseudodoxia now preserved in