Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/374

342 merit feeds upon fish, together with the intestines of fowls and other kitchen refuse." Certain it is that when Turner was in Italy he saw white Egrets ("Albardeolas" he calls them), which, he says, only differed from the "Shovelard" of the English in lacking the broad bill of the Spoonbill. And secondly, Turner states that the rare white Herons which occurred in Britain not only joined company to the common blue Herons (Ardea cinerea), but actually bred with them, and produced offspring by their union. Here are his words:—"Visa est etiam alba (ardea) cum (not inter) ''cyanea apud Anglos nidulari, et prolem gignere. Quare ejusdem esse speciei satis constat.''" This last sentence disposes of the idea which Turner may himself have considered, that these white Herons represented one of the white species of Egrets, such as he had met with in Italy. Clearly, the white Herons which occurred in Britain must have been albinos or white varieties of the common bird, such as have been obtained in modern times.

Gladly would we linger to discuss Turner's numerous references to the bird-life of Merrie England, picturing in our mind's eye the havoc which the blue "Henharroer" (Circus cyaneus) wrought in well-stocked poultry-yards, the Osprey (Pandion haliaëtus) purloining stock-fishes from the stews, and the Sheldrake (Tadorna cornuta) flighting round her nest hard by the tideway of the Thames; but present interests require us to indicate that Turner did not confine his attention to ornithology.

We have hitherto failed to ascertain that Turner studied mammals like his brother Cantab, Dr. Caius; but both the courtly doctor of medicine and the militant divine were keenly interested in the fish fauna of the British Islands. It was Dr. Caius who first discovered that the Ruff (Acerina vulgaris) existed in the waters of an English river—the Norfolk Yare (the doctor was a Norfolk man). Yet the notes which Dr. Caius published himself, or sent direct to Gesner, however interesting, will hardly bear a safe comparison with the list of British Fishes which Gesner received from Turner.

Turner was residing at Wissenburg when he drafted this rough catalogue, probably at a distance from his private memoranda: he wrote it in 1557. Eleven years later he evinced his sustained interest in the subject by alluding in print to his