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  1. Discover
  2. Paper: 'Treasure of Knowledge'
  3. Unit: Observation and Experimentation

Two kingfishers

External links

'Of the King-fisher', Pseudodoxia Epidemica

Related sources

Image for Title page of Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1672)

Commentary

Two kingfishers
Collection: 
Science School, Winchester College

In Book 3 of Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Browne disputes the myth that kingfishers, when dead, can be used to show the direction of the wind. He experimented by hanging a kingfisher on a thread and found, ‘where the air is free, it observes not a constant respect unto the mouth of the wind’, but moved around. He then suspended two kingfishers together and noted that they often pointed in different directions.

  
Listen to this part of Pseudodoxia Epidemica: