Certain miscellany tracts written by Thomas Brown.

TRACT IV. AN ANSWER To certain QUERIES Relating to Fishes, Birds, Insects.

SIR,

I Return the following Answers to your Queries which were these,

• [1. What Fishes are meant by the Names, Halec and Mugil?
• 2. What is the Bird which you will receive from the Bearer? and what

• Birds are meant by the Names Hal∣cyon, Nysus, Ciris, Nycticorax?
• 3. What Insect is meant by the word Cicada?]

The word Halec we are taught to ren∣der an Herring, which, being an ancient word, is not strictly appropriable unto a Fish not known or not described by the Ancients; and which the modern Natu∣ralists are fain to name Harengus; the word Halecula being applied unto such little Fish out of which they were fain to make Pickle; and Halec or Alec, taken for the Liquamen or Liquor it self, accor∣ding to that of the Poet,

—Ego faecem primus & Alec Primus & inveni piper album—

And was a conditure and Sawce much af∣fected by Antiquity, as was also Muria and Garum.

In common constructions, Mugil is ren∣dred a Mullet, which, notwithstanding, is a different Fish from the Mugil described by Authours; wherein, if we mistake, we cannot so closely apprehend the expression of Juvenal,

—Quosdam ventres & Mugilis intrat.

And misconceive the Fish, whereby For∣nicatours were so opprobriously and irk∣somely punished; for the Mugil being somewhat rough and hard skinned, did more exasperate the gutts of such offen∣ders: whereas the Mullet was a smooth Fish, and of too high esteem to be imploy∣ed in such offices.

I cannot but wonder that this Bird you sent should be a stranger unto you, and unto those who had a sight thereof: for, though it be not seen every day, yet we often meet with it in this Country. It is an elegant Bird, which he that once be∣holdeth can hardly mistake any other for it. From the proper Note it is called an Hoopebird with us; in Greek Epops, in Latin Upupa. We are little obliged unto our School instruction, wherein we are taught to render Upupa a Lapwing, which Bird our natural Writers name Vannellus; for thereby we mistake this remarkable Bird, and apprehend not rightly what is delivered of it.

We apprehend not the Hieroglyphical considerations which the old Aegyptians made of this observable Bird; who consi∣dering

dering therein the order and variety of Colours, the twenty six or twenty eight Feathers in its Crest, his latitancy, and mewing this handsome outside in the Winter; they made it an Emblem of the varieties of the World, the succession of Times and Seasons, and signal mutati∣ons in them. And therefore Orus, the Hieroglyphick of the World, had the Head of an Hoopebird upon the top of his Staff.

Hereby we may also mistake the Du∣chiphath, or Bird forbidden for Food in Le∣viticus; and, not knowing the Bird, may the less apprehend some reasons of that prohibition; that is, the magical virtues ascribed unto it by the Aegyptians, and the superstitious apprehensions which that Nation held of it, whilst they precisely numbred the Feathers and Colours there∣of, while they placed it on the Heads of their Gods, and near their Mercurial Cros∣ses, and so highly magnified this Bird in their sacred Symbols.

Again, not knowing or mistaking this Bird, we may misapprehend, or not close∣ly apprehend, that handsome expression of Ovid, when Tereus was turned into an Upupa, or Hoopebird.

Vertitur in volucrem cui sunt pro vertice Cristae, Protinus immodicum surgit pro cuspide ro∣strum Nomen Epops volucri, facies armata vide∣tur.

For, in this military shape, he is aptly phancied even still revengefully to pursue his hated Wife Progne: in the propriety of his Note crying out, Pou, pou, ubi, ubi, or Where are you?

Nor are we singly deceived in the no∣minal translation of this Bird: in many other Animals we commit the like mistake. So Gracculus is rendred a Jay, which Bird notwithstanding must be of a dark colour according to that of Martial,

Sed quandam volo nocte nigriorem Formica, pice, Gracculo, cicada.

Halcyon is rendred a King-fisher, a Bird commonly known among us, and by Zoographers and Naturals the same is named Ispida, a well coloured Bird fre∣quenting Streams and Rivers, building in holes of Pits, like some Martins, about the end of the Spring; in whose Nests we have found little else than innumerable small Fish Bones, and white round Eggs of

a smooth and polished surface, whereas the true Alcyon is a Sea Bird, makes an hand∣some Nest floating upon the Water, and breedeth in the Winter.

That Nysus should be rendred either an Hobby or a Sparrow Hawk, in the Fable of Nysus and Scylla in Ovid, because we are much to seek in the distinction of Hawks according to their old denomina∣tions, we shall not much contend, and may allow a favourable latitude therein: but that the Ciris or Bird into which Scyl∣la was turned should be translated a Lark, it can hardly be made out agreeable unto the description of Virgil in his Poem of that name,

Inde alias volucres mimóque infecta rubenti Crura—

But seems more agreeable unto some kind of Hoemantopus or Redshank; and so the Nysus to have been some kind of Hawk, which delighteth about the Sea and Ma∣rishes, where such prey most aboundeth, which sort of Hawk while Scaliger deter∣mineth to be a Merlin, the French Trans∣latour warily expoundeth it to be some kind of Hawk.

Nycticorax we may leave unto the com∣mon and verbal translation of a Night Ra∣ven,

but we know no proper kind of Ra∣ven unto which to confine the same, and therefore some take the liberty to ascribe it unto some sort of Owls, and others unto the Bittern; which Bird in its common Note, which he useth out of the time of coupling and upon the Wing, so well re∣sembleth the croaking of a Raven that I have been deceived by it.

While Cicada is rendred a Grashopper, we commonly think that which is so cal∣led among us to be the true Cicada; wherein, as we have elsewhere declared, there is a great mistake: for we have not the Cicada in England, and indeed no pro∣per word for that Animal, which the French nameth Cigale. That which we commonly call a Grashopper, and the French Saulterelle being one kind of Lo∣cust, so rendred in the Plague of Aegypt, and, in old Saxon named Gersthop.

I have been the less accurate in these Answers, because the Queries are not of difficult Resolution, or of great moment: however, I would not wholly neglect them or your satisfaction, as being, Sir,

Yours, &c.

Notes

• Answer to Query 1.
• Answer to Query 2.
• Levit. 11. 19.
• See Vulg. Err. B. 3. c. 10.
• Answer to Query 3.
• Vulg. Err. B. 5. c. 3.