Lee Raye

31 Oct 1616: Last missive of Thomas Coryate traveller, #writer, from Agra in Mughal India written #otd (eebo) Great camel!

Selfie - white person in colourful jacket with glasses

Quick the books are waiting! 😸💚📚

Excellent resource tracing the arrival of Aboriginal people to Australia around 65,000 years ago, through mega fauna, the ice age & rising seas. It maps their archaeological, art & oral records and stories onto the geographical evolution of Australia, crediting all owners of traditional knowledge.

A yellow coral fungus coming up like fingers

An orange frilly waxcap like fancy slices of carrot

a bright red (scarlet waxcap?) with a deep red stipe in the moss

Not a waxcap - a puffball fungus which is worty and flexible like a toad's skin!

Had a delightful time on the #WaxcapWatch survey earlier this week! 😁🍄

“First Salmon”: 73-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Fish History Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest salmon in Arctic Alaska’s Cretaceous fossil. During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs ruled the land, but the waterways of the Arctic were home to creature...

🐟 New research into fossils from the Cretaceous Period found 3️⃣ previously unknown fish species, including "the oldest salmonid in the fossil record."

'This novel socialisation behaviour in Ursus arctos populations on the oceanic fringe may serve a function for territoriality or sexual selectivity'

This is a really important piece that hugely resonates with me personally. I'm precarious too, and the cognitive dissonance of being invited to keynote because of your research, your profile whilst being chronically uncertain of your survival in the field, is all too familiar #MedievalSky

#Bird #Wildlife
Mute swan (Cygnus olor), Cygne tuberculé, Alarc'h roueel.

"An Alarc'h" is a traditional Breton folk song with a patriotic theme. It commemorates the return of the exiled Breton prince Jean de Montfort (known as "The Swan of Montfort") to retake his duchy from the French in 1379.

2 papyrii of the Book of the Dead with Spell 17

2 papyrii of the Book of the Dead with Spell 17

vignette of Spell 83, BM.

Golden heart amulet with inlaid polycrome glass depiction of the Bennu, Annexe of the Burial Chamber of Tut’Ankh’Amen, 1323 BCE, Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egyptian Museum.

The Heron in ancient Egypt. Respected.

1,2. Papyrii of Book of the Dead (Spell 17)

3. Vignette of Spell 83, BM

4. Golden heart amulet with inlaid polycrome glass depiction of Bennu, Annexe of Burial Chamber of Tut’Ankh’Amen, 1323 BCE, Valley ofthe Kings, Thebes ⚱️

Thx as ever Heroneer Hermes1861

#FossilFriday Not to be outdone by Isaac Newton who is buried beneath a gastropod fossil in Westminster Abbey, the famous geologist Charles Lyell’s gravestone is Carboniferous crinoidal limestone full of columnals of these ‘sea-lilies’.

Map of Britain and Ireland showing where the bass was recorded between 1529 and 1772. There are many records from the English Channel, a few from the Celtic Sea, Irish Sea and south coast of Ireland, and some from the east of England (especially East Anglia and Kent).

Here is where the European (sea) bass was recorded 250-500 years ago. 🎣Caught for food, interestingly it seems to have only been common in the south. It has expanded its range up the east coast of Britain with the warming temperatures of the last century. Map / #AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife

Love this! The poor, maligned frogs here represent heresy made visible, and are associated with Revelations 16:3 where frogs come from the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast and a false prophet. 🐸
But was the image intended as a dig at the Franciscans? 🤭

Did you know? Shakespeare’s England had native dog roses and imported damask roses — the latter was prized as the only repeat-flowering rose before the 18th century. 🌹 www.cassidycash.com/ep391

(If anyone knows anything else about this source or this phenomenon in early modern English please feel free to share more! Happy Black History Month! 🌠)

'I intend very shortly to set out for my native country, to enjoy the pleasure of conversing with my old hearty friends. Thus wishing you health, happiness, long life, and all the enjoyments the earth can afford. I remain Your constant, undisguis'd, and sincere Friend for ever.

But if that's true the ending is cheeky! In the last letter the author says they are sailing back to Tunis and then sign off:
'I remain' (ha!) 'your constant, undisguis'd and sincere Friend'
V. naughty from an author who's writing to himself and using literary blackface for clout!!🙀

But 'Letters from a Moor' (thought to actually be by a 'William Lloyd') doesn't say anything especially shocking. So why the attribution to a traveler from Tunis? 🤔
In this case maybe the Black identity was a marketing tactic? (the promise of a fresh, exotic voice) 🤑
www.jstor.org/stable/29149...

An Image from 'Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy' with a portrait of the fictional spy with a beard and mustache, wearing a turban holding a spear and wearing a cape with a brooch over an embroidered shirt. He is 'Mahomet L'Imposteur' 'L'Espion Turc' and this is from 'Tome Quatrieme'

But let's go deeper... This book is actually not by a Tunisian traveler at all!! But it still tells us something about Black history in Europe. In the early modern period, we know Black and Asian identities were sometimes used by Europeans to speak truth to power without censorship... ✍🏽👑

'The town is wall'd and moated round, except where it joins to the castle or the sea. The castle is of a vast extent, and stands on a lofty promontory, which runs far back into the sea. There are computed to be upwards of two hundred sail of ships belonging to this place, emplloy'd in different branches of trade; the fishery upon this coast being very considerable; particularly the herring, turbet, ling, cod-fish, haddock, fluke, whiting, mackrel, and lobsters, great quantities of which are sent every season to London'

The book is really interesting! From my history of nature perspective there's an account of the fishes caught at Scarborough 🎣, the herrings of Yarmouth ⛵(@projectfishistory.bsky.social), and a fun description of the lions of the Tower of London 🦁 (who were sent by the Emperor of Morocco of course)!

Letters from a Moor at London to his friend at Tunis. Containing an account of his journey through England. With his observations on the laws, customs, religion, and manners of the English nation. Lik... 1 unnumbered leaf, 274 pages ; (12mo)

For #BlackHistoryMonth, here are some thoughts about a source I've read - 'Letters from a Moor at London to his Friend at Tunis' (1736). This is a kind of guide to England, supposedly (uh-oh! 😅) written by a Black traveler from Tunisia, North Africa. 🇹🇳🧑🏽‍✈️
archive.org/details/b330...

Century-old papers saved from the bin reveal changes in Europe’s plant life Plant inventories dating back to 1884 and nearly thrown away enable unique time-lapse study of biodiversity in Swiss meadows

Changes in Swiss pasture species diversity for over a century 🧪
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Day 75/100 of Cool Indian Wildlife History

Clara was a famous rhinoceros captured from Assam, taken to Holland, and exhibited across Europe in 1741-58. In India, Director of the Dutch factoy, kept her as a pet in Hooghly for 3 yrs.

This 1747 illustration shows a ship taking her from Hooghly.

Pine Marten reintroduced to Exmoor Pine Marten has returned to Exmoor NP after an absence of more than a century. Nine females and 10 males were released during September 2025 at secret locations owned by the National Trust and Forestry England. The releases mark the return of an animal which was once common locally but lost due to hunting and the decline of its favoured woodland habitat. The Pine Martens were sourced from healthy wild populations in north-west Scotland.

Pine Marten has returned to Exmoor NP after an absence of more than a century:

Fossil found on UK coast is unique 'sword dragon' species Scientists say the newly discovered species of marine reptile probably met a grisly end.

Fossil found on Dorset coast is unique 'sword dragon' species www.bbc.com/news/article...

Fate of the last female great auk is finally solved DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio. https://scim.ag/4791YqA

Megafauna bones discovered in South America suggest that humans regularly ate giant sloths and armadillos. Archaeologists now think smaller animals only became dietary staples after the megafauna were hunted to extinction.

archaeology.org/news/2025/10/06/what-happened-to-south-americas-megafauna/

An 18th-century caracal wildcat and its keeper in the Tower of London - Big Cats of Suffolk An Asian caracal wildcat, a gift to the East India Company from the Nawab of Bengal, its puppet ruler, arrived at the Tower of London in 1759. Named the Siyagoest, the caracal was accompanied by…

An 18th-century caracal wildcat an it's keeper at the Tower of London bigcatsofsuffolk.com/an-18th-cent...

Footpath covered in acorns. The sound of me walking along it goes CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH

Acorrn seasooon 🥳🌰💚🌳

Common toad is becoming uncommon in UK, study shows Species’ population has almost halved in a generation and urgent action is needed to protect it, analysis finds

Common toad is becoming uncommon in UK, study shows

- Species’ population has almost halved in a generation and urgent action is needed to protect it

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

“Big Mackerel Catch at Rhos” Postcard https://www.rhosfynach.co.uk/history.htm

Images of wood #fishweir wicker fence 2 meter tall on the shore #RhosonSea #ConwyCounty Borough, #Wales. Historical sources indicted used for seasonal fisheries for herring and mackerel late 19th century.
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#maritimeheritage #oceandecadeheritage
#coastalhistory

I found an interesting study on the potential links between copper mining 4000 years ago and Strawberry trees in Ireland based on DNA sequencing a year or two ago.

britishandirishbotany.org/index.php/bi...