The Madrass Jay
Edward Buckley's seventeenth-century Latin description of a bird specimen is detailed enough to identify it as an Indian Pitta.
The Advisory Boar
By Abhijit Menon-Sen <ams@toroid.org>The Partridge Snipe
One of the many treasures on archive.org is a copy of the 1713 book "Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium" by the British scientist John Ray (or "Joannis Raii" in Latin). The book is interesting not only because it predates and influenced Linnaean taxonomy, but especially because it includes a few illustrations and descriptions of "Indian birds about Fort St. George" (near Madras) at the end, contributed by Edward Buckley, a surgeon at the Fort.
