Willughby Research Articles

Early Modern Attitudes to the Ravens and Red Kites of London

Ravens (Corvus corax) and red kites (Milvus milvus) were commonly seen in London in the early modern period. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the diversity of attitudes towards these birds. Previous historiography on the subject has failed to contextualize its sources. The excited accounts of travellers like Schaseck, the Venetian Ambassador’s amanuensis and Lupold von Wedel need to be counter-balanced by considering the bored antipathy common amongst the British naturalists; William Turner, Francis Willughby and John Ray and the descriptions of sanitation services provided by European naturalists and local poets. The final part of the paper reconstructs the patchwork of legislation and custom relating to the species from early modern London.

Fresh Fish: Observation up Close in Late Seventeenth-Century England.

The traditional view of London's Royal Society as a closed circle has been subject to revision in the past decades. Historians have shown the considerable extent to which the Fellows of the Society drew on a broad range of men of practice for their respective skill sets. This article offers an in-depth analysis of the contributions of fishermen and fishmongers to the creation of natural knowledge. It centres on the Historia piscium (Oxford, 1686), written by Francis Willughby and John Ray, and its surrounding sources. This natural history of fishes aspired to give a concise and precise overview of species, and to uncover the divine order in which they were created. While men of practice contributed to this project in multiple ways, their first-hand observations carried particular weight. Through their cumulative experience of working with fish they saw a great number of living species, rather than the dried exemplars that naturalists would usually consult in cabinets of curiosities, or the indirect evidence that images might present. This article examines what kind of exchanges took place between fishermen and fishmongers on the one hand and Fellows on the other, and where, how and why these were incorporated into the fish book. In so doing, it also aims to qualify the value attached to direct (natural historical) observation in the socio-cultural context of late seventeenth-century England.

The Wonderful Mr Willughby: The First True Ornithologist

The Wonderful Mr Willughby: The First True Ornithologist

Swift on Swifts

Jonathan Swift was very interested in his own name. More precisely, he seems to have looked up what a ‘swift’ was in Francis Willughby’s Ornithology (1678) and come across the following: This is the biggest of all Swallows we have hitherto seen. It hath a great Head, a huge wide mouth; but a very small black Bill, (wherein it agrees with the Churn-Owl) towards the Nosthrils broad and depressed. Its Tongue is broad, and somewhat cloven: Its Nosthrils long, placed obliquely, obtuse toward the Head, acute toward the point of the Bill: Its Eyes great, and their Irides of a hazel colour. It hath almost no variety or difference of colour in the whole body: For as well the upper as the lower side, and also the Wings and Tail are black, with an obscure tincture of green, or red: Only under the Chin is a notable spot of white or ash-colour.1

ACCOUNT OF AN ELIZABETHAN FAMILY: THE WILLOUGHBYS OF WOLLATON BY CASSANDRA WILLOUGHBY (1670–1735)

[f. 39] This Sir Henry Willughby was one of those gentlemen that went to appease the rebels in Norfolk who had got together under Robert Ket a tanner upon a grievance on account of inclosures and was killed at Norwich August the 27th 1548 [sic]. He and his Lady both lye buried in the Church at Wollaton where there is a monument for them.

Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby FRS (1635–1672), ed. Tim Birkhead

Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby FRS (1635–1672), ed. Tim Birkhead

The forgotten founder of ornithology

Elizabeth Yale relishes a biography of Francis Willughby, a seventeenth-century polymath with a gift for collaboration. Elizabeth Yale relishes a biography of Francis Willughby, a seventeenth-century polymath with a gift for collaboration.

Willughby's Buzzard: names and misnomers of the European Honey-buzzard (Pernis apivorus)

The European Honey-buzzard (Pernis apivorus) was first accurately described and clearly distinguished from the Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their Ornithology, originally published in Latin in 1676. Alfred Newton's statement that Pierre Belon had described the species over a century earlier is not entirely correct, as Belon confused this honey-buzzard's features with those of the common buzzard and even appeared uncertain whether it was a separate species. One of Willughby's important contributions to ornithology was the identification and use of “characteristic marks” to distinguish and identify species, including those that distinguish the European Honey-buzzard from the Common Buzzard. Because Willughby provided the first accurate description of Pernis apivorus – and because his contribution to ornithology has never been formally recognized – we propose that the common name of the European Honey-buzzard be changed to Willughby's Buzzard.

Sociable Knowledge: Natural History and the Nation in Early Modern Britain. Elizabeth Yale. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. xii+346.

Sociable Knowledge: Natural History and the Nation in Early Modern Britain. Elizabeth Yale. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. xii+346. Consider this depiction of “An Antiquary” offered by John Earle (ca.1600–1665), bishop of Salisbury: “A great admirer he is of the rust of old Monuments. … Printed bookes he contemnes, as a novelty of this latter age; but a Manu-script he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all Moth-eaten, and the dust make a Parenthesis between every Syllable.”1 Written before some of the people in the book under review were born, Earle’s caricature catches aspects of their behavior, but only superficially. Men such as Elias Ashmole, John Aubrey, Anthony Wood, Edward Lhuyd, John Evelyn, and Robert Plot cannot be fully captured by the label “antiquary,” in part because their interests embraced natural history, and also because they did not work alone, as Earle implied. They were linked by correspondence in intellectual collaboration, using both manuscript and print.

Botanical relics of a lost landscape: herborising ‘upon the Cliffs about the Pharos’ in Genoa, March 1664

This paper uses approaches derived from historical ecology to show how knowledge can be gained about the historical and cultural value of neglected urban landscapes. We study the area around Genoa’s lighthouse and consider the long-term survival of individual plant species and some implications for landscape conservation. We examine topographical representations over the last 500 years to establish the landscape context of the lighthouse. We then analyse the records of plants collected by two English naturalists of the seventeenth century, John Ray and Francis Willughby, and demonstrate how the plants were identified and documented. We survey the current vegetation to establish whether any species identified in 1664 still grow at the site. This exploration of botanical ancestry at a local scale makes it possible to demonstrate cultural–historical values of the lighthouse rocks and their vegetation which should be considered as part of the cultural heritage of the city of Genoa.

A vile passion for altering names: the contributions of Charles Thorold Wood jun. and Neville Wood to ornithology in the 1830s

During the 1830s, Charles Thorold Wood jun. and his younger brother Neville Wood, published, separately, three books and a series of articles dealing with two ornithological subjects: the common and scientific names of birds, and the cataloguing of publications. Probably following William Swainson's lead, the Woods were enthusiastic about standardizing the common (English) bird names and making them logical and meaningful. They also each published an annotated bibliography of ornithological publications, notable for being among the first of such compilations, but also for the vitriol with which they criticized those – James Rennie and Hugh Strickland, in particular – whose work they did not like. In contrast, the praise they heaped on those they did approve of – William Swainson, John Latham, Robert Mudie, Prideaux John Selby, Francis Willughby and each other – was excessive. Possibly because of the tenor of their comments about other ornithologists, and the strangeness of their proposed English bird names, the Woods’ work has rarely been cited, and their new names for birds were virtually ignored from the start.

Francis Barlow, the King's Birds, and the Ornithology of Francis Willughby and John Ray

Francis Barlow, the King's Birds, and the Ornithology of Francis Willughby and John Ray

Francis Barlow, the King’s Birds, and the Ornithology of Francis Willughby and John Ray

In this essay, Nathan Flis identifies paintings by English artist Francis Barlow as the sources for illustrations of exotic birds in Ray and Willughby’s Ornithology. The process of painting played a key role in establishing the likenesses of the birds, which involved the observation of live specimens and comparison with graphical and textual precedents. At the same time, popular prints by Barlow depicting the same birds cast the creatures as objects of wonder and cultural lore. Barlow’s role in the Ornithology is unexpected because his popular works stood at odds with the Royal Society’s mandate to describe nature objectively. The range of Barlow’s productions highlights the plurality of—and tensions between—experiences of the natural world in the seventeenth century.

Naturalia : the history of natural history and medicine in the seventeenth century

In 1712 the poet Elkanah Settle (1648–1724) published a funeral poem, Threnodia Apollinaris , dedicated to the memory of Dr Martin Lister.[1][1] Settle had a good deal of material to draw upon, because Lister had been Vice-President of the Royal Society, a physician to Queen Anne, and the first

Attending to insects: Francis Willughby and John Ray

Francis Willughby and John Ray were at the forefront of the natural history of insects in the second half of the seventeenth century. Willughby in particular had a deep interest in insects' metamorphosis, behaviour and diversity, an interest that he passed on to his friend and mentor Ray. By examining Willughby's contributions to John Wilkins's Essay towards a Real Character (1668) and Ray's Methodus insectorum (1705) and Historia insectorum (1710), which contained substantial material from Willughby's manuscript history of insects, one may reconstruct how the two naturalists studied insects, their innovative use of metamorphosis in insect classification, and the sheer diversity of insect forms that they described on the basis of their own collections and those of London and Oxford virtuosi. Imperfect as it was, Historia insectorum was recognized by contemporaries as a significant contribution to the emerging field of entomology.

The debt of John Ray and Martin Lister to Guillaume Rondelet of Montpellier

The fame of its medical university and its reputation for field botany attracted visitors from all over Europe to seventeenth-century Montpellier. It was there that Martin Lister first made the acquaintance of John Ray in 1665. Twenty years later, in London, they cooperated in the production of the ambitious and lavishly illustrated Historia Piscium based on the notes of the late Francis Willughby. Ray, Lister and others contributed additional material. In their own work on fishes, cetaceans and shellfish Ray and Lister were considerably indebted to the Libri de piscibus marinis of an earlier Montpellier professor, Guillaume Rondelet, whose Aristotelian/Galenic approach to the study of medicine and living things was distinguished by a quite exceptional level of knowledge about aquatic species, based on a secure grasp of the classical and contemporary literature, but above all on his own observations in rivers, lakes, lagoons and the open sea, and his domestication (and dissection) of marine species in ponds and aquaria at his country house. Rondelet's book proved useful to Ray and to Lister as a work of reference, as a stimulus for reflection on biological problems, as an aid to nomenclature, as a source of precise descriptions of species, in both words and pictures, as a model to be improved upon in taxonomy, as a warning against reliance on hearsay, and as a valuable account of observations and experiments. Ray used it in much the same way as he used the work of those sixteenth-century botanists who met with his approval. Several of these had been Rondelet's pupils.

John Ray, physico-theology and afterwards

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”).Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).

1672c.1 The Amazing Francis Willughby, and the Role of Stoolball in the Evolution of Baseball and Cricket

Hornebillets. Hornebillets is when make 2 round holes in the ground, 7 or 8 yards asunder, or further or neerrer as think good. They play 2 of a side, and have one Cat & a pare of Dogstaffes betweene them.... If 6 play must have 3 holes, if 8, 4 c if it is not caught, however, the defense throws the ball back, trying to hit the stool, a feat that also will serve to retire the hitter. Willughby describes nothing resembling pitching, batting, or any attempt to defend the stool from the thrown ball. It's not cricket-like at all.But then, we find in Willughby the otherwise unrecorded game of hornebillets.6 Hornebillets play sounds familiar to us, even if its name doesn't. A member of one team tries to throw the into a circular hole. A member of the opposing team, knowing that if the billet enters the hole they are out, hits it away with a staff and then runs from hole to hole, running up the score, until the billet can be retrieved and returned. A score of 63 wins the game. Running was apparently mandatory for all hits. A fly rule is not mentioned. The age range and genders of the players are not given.It would be hard to miss the resemblance of this game to the early American o' cat ballgames, which are sometimes rendered as one-hole cat, two-hole cat, etc. It would also be hard to miss the central fact that a is not a ball; it is a short length of stick or animal horn. If the playing ground was not level, players may have much preferred to play with an object that was not forever rolling down a slope and away from them. Whether hornebillets has some relationship to primitive forms of cricket, or English stoolball, or to the game of English baseball that arose in the next century, awaits the research effort of some modern-day Willughby. …

Samuel Pepys’s hand-coloured copy of John Ray’s ‘The Ornithology of Francis Willughby’ (1678)

We describe a unique, hand-coloured copy of Ray’s (1678) The Ornithology of Francis Willughby that was apparently presented to Samuel Pepys between 1684 and 1686 during his presidency of the Royal Society. Somehow, this volume was not catalogued as part of Pepys’s famous library, and fell into private hands until, in 1924, it was purchased for the McGill University Library in Montreal. More than 90% of the original engravings of birds in this volume are hand-coloured, making this a unique attempt to depict a large proportion of the known birds of the world in colour, and providing interesting insights into knowledge of bird colouration in the seventeenth century. The colouring of the 332 bird species on 76 hand-coloured plates is generally quite accurate—in the instances where the colouring is incorrect, it usually matches the description in Ray’s text almost exactly.

Willughby’s angel: the pintailed sandgrouse (Pterocles alchata)

Among paintings of birds thought to have been bought in 1663 in Nuremberg by Francis Willughby, and now housed in Nottingham University library, is the painting of a bird called Jangle de Languedoc. Unlike some of the other drawings, this particular one was never used by Ray in his Ornithology of Francis Willughby (1678), who had difficulty in identifying the bird. We show here that this painting was not bought in Nuremberg, but that it was obtained by Ray from Sir Thomas Crew, during his stay in Montpellier in 1665. Furthermore, had Ray looked at Gessner (Historiae animalium liber III qui est de avium natura. Christophus Froschoverus, Tiguri, 1555), Aldrovandi (Ornithologiae, tomus alter. Bononiae, apud Franciscum de Franciscis Senensem, 1600), Jonston (Historiae naturalis de avibus libri VI. Matthaeus Merianus, Frankfurt, 1650) and mostly at Charleton (Gualteri Charletoni Exercitationes de Differentiis & Nominibus Animalium. Theatro Sheldoniano, Oxford, 1677), he would have been able to identify the bird of the painting as alchata or “angel”, specifically a pintailed sandgrouse, Pterocles alchata.