The ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton in the county of Warwick Esq, fellow of the Royal Society in three books : wherein all the birds hitherto known, being reduced into a method sutable to their natures, are accurately described : the descriptions illustrated by most elegant figures, nearly resembling the live birds, engraven in LXXVII copper plates : translated into English, and enlarged with many additions throughout the whole work : to which are added, Three considerable discourses, I. of the art of fowling, with a description of several nets in two large copper plates, II. of the ordering of singing birds, III. of falconry / by John Ray ...

§. V. * The Sea-Pie. Pica Marina.

ALdrovandus in the twelfth Book and fifteenth Chapter of his Ornithology doth thus briefly describe this bird. The whole Bird, excepting the Head, Neck, Feet, and also part of the Wings, is of a greenish colour. The Bill is strong, a little longer than a Pies, very sharp. The top of the Head, and down as low as a third part of the Neck, is of a delayed Chesnut colour. The lower part of the Head to the Tem∣ples and Eyes yellow. The Eyes black, with yellow Irides, encompassed again with a black circle. The Feet dusky; the Toes long; the Nails very crooked and black: The rest of the body green, except the second row of Wing-feathers, which are of a dilute Chesnut, having their ends blue.

Whether he himself saw this Bird, or described it from a picture, he tells us not: But in that he affirms, that the Strasburg Roller never lives in maritime places, and so with∣out reason challenges the name of the Sea-pie, which the Bolognese (as Gesner witnes∣seth) attribute to it, he is without doubt deceived: Sith we our selves (as we said before) saw at Messina in Sicily, and in the Isle of Malta several of them.