know that it was originally published
so early as 1679.

In Morton's _Natural History of
Northamptonshire_ (1712), is a list headed ``Some
Errata of the press to be corrected''; and
at the end of the list is the following
amusing note: ``There is no cut of the
Hen of the lesser Py'd Brambling in Tab.
13 tho' 'tis referred to in p. 423 which
omission was owing to an accident and is
really not very material, the hen of that
bird differing but little from the cock
which is represented in that Table under
fig. 3.''

There is a very prevalent notion that
authors did not correct the proofs of their
books in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, but there is sufficient evidence

that this is altogether a mistake. Professor
De Morgan, with his usual sagacity, alludes
to this point in his _Arithmetical Books_
(1847): ``A great many circumstances induce
me to think that the general fashion
of correcting the press by the author came
in with the seventeenth century or
thereabouts.'' And he instances this note on
the title-page of Richard Witt's _Arithmetical
Questions_ (1613): ``Examined also