HISTORICAL PREFACE xli. 



were put aside, and having no value as conveyances 

 of land became buried among the Archives of the State, 

 until an industrious antiquary, Mr. F. D. Hardy, dug them 

 up and communicated them to " Collectanea Topographica," 

 which is the only work in which they have been printed. 



The search for the originals, which Professor Newton 

 thought it highly desirable should be re-examined, gave 

 a good deal of trouble, until Dr. Birch suggested my 

 applying at the Record Office, in Chancery Lane, where 

 they were soon run to ground. It was worth the labour, 

 although there was nothing more about Gannets than 

 Hardy and Steinman had given us. 



Here we have the oldest record of any bird's breeding- 

 place in the British Isles, with the exception of sundry 

 eyries of the Peregrine Falcon specified in Domesday 

 Book which was completed in 1086. There are also, it 

 is true. Heronries of great antiquity, but none — not even 

 Chilham in Kent, or Wormegay in Norfolk (" Norw. N. 

 Tr.," VI., p. 169) — can show such a pedigree as the Lundy 

 Gannets. 1274 is indeed a long way back. Even at that 

 time it is to be inferred that the Gannets on " petra gane- 

 torum " — the isolated rock at the north-east end of the 

 island — ^were not very numerous, as their value was only 

 reckoned by the assessor as equal to a hundred rabbit- 

 skins. Evidently the " butcher falcons " were thought 

 more of, and indeed Lundy Peregrines are still famed 

 for their courage and splendid qualities (c/. " Field," 

 1891, p. 715). 



Some forty-seven years later, however, the Gannets 

 had risen in value, and in spite of marauding Scots, they 



