76 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



SOLAMOSSE GEESE. 

 By J. H. GURNEY, F.L.S., F.Z.S., etc. 



THE Household Books of Lord William Howard of Naworth 

 Castle in Cumberland, known in Border traditions as " Belted 

 Will," having been submitted to the Surtees Society, a liberal 

 selection from them was published in 1877 (68), under the 

 editorship of the Rev. George Ornsby, in which there are 

 several entries about birds. 



Under date of I4th August 1623 we read of the following 

 payment : 



To the Lord Crainston's man bringing iiij Solamosse geese, iij s , iiij s . 



and a month later, 



1 8th Sept. To Mr. Albanye Fetherstone's man bringing iiij live 

 partriges, xij d . 



And again, on 23rd August 1633, 



To 2 boyes bringinge 10 Sollemgeese from my Lord Cranston, x s . 



To the first of these passages the editor, Mr. Ornsby, 

 appends a note saying that the Gannet or Solan Goose is 

 the bird meant ; but this appears doubtful, from what Mr. 

 H. S. Gladstone has recently told me. 



Mr. Gladstone finds the Solway Firth spelled in some 

 old MSS. thus " Sollan Moss," and in another place 

 " Solon Moss ; " and also " Sollan " in an old map of 

 Cumberland. This naturally leads to the conclusion that 

 the Geese brought into Naworth Castle were not Gannets 



o 



but Grey Geese of some sort from the Solway. Solway 

 Moss, which lies at the mouth of the river Esk, is only five 

 miles from Naworth Castle, but as to whether Geese are still 

 found there, I have no information. 



As they were sent by Lord Crainston in August, they 

 may have been domestic Geese, which is all the more 

 possible, as " willd gesse " and " wilde gouse " are elsewhere 

 particularised in the Naworth accounts ; Wild Geese would 

 hardly have been obtainable so early in the autumn as August. 



In the second passage the word is different, the spelling 



