Histoire Naturelle des Indes
45 of 122
Accession number: MA 3900
Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.
Title: Histoire Naturelle des Indes [supplied on an 18th century title page]
Contents: 199 images of West Indian plants, animals and human life, with accompanying manuscript captions written in late sixteenth-century French.
Medium: Most of the illustrations consist of a black chalk underdrawing and a combination of pen and brown ink with watercolor; on some images selected areas have also been glazed with a gum.
Dimensions: Binding: 30 x 21 cm; individual leaves: 29.3 x 19.7 cm.
Binding: Bound or rebound in brown leather in the late 18th century.
Pagination: Penciled folio numbers (1–125) in lower right corner of each page were added by The Morgan Library & Museum. Folios 92v–93, 93v–94, and 95v–96 are fold-out leaves.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Setaqve
This is a green-colored stone which is found among the sea beds where they fish for pearls, that is at La Margarita. It gives off a sound like glass and is very excellent for all pain of the flanks, being laid on the painful side.
Hovitre De Loranbec (Oyster from Loranbec)
Canav Dantigova (Canoe of Antigua)
The Indians use this fish to catch others. They first tame it by feeding it when it is small and when they want to fish, they feed this fish on the gland of a cayman then throw it in the sea having tied a string to its tail. When the fish smell the odor of the glands it has eaten, they come close to it and the Indians slowly pull the string to bring the fish near the boat; the fish is followed by others and, at this instant, they throw out the net and all the fish which followed the other fish are caught.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 44v–45)
