148 PALIN T BRITISH ANIMALS. 
Thomas Engaine, dying without issue in 1368, was 
found to be seized of 14 yardlands and meadow, and 
14s. 4d. rent, in Pightesle, in the county of North- 
ampton, held by the service of finding, at his own 
proper costs, certain dogs for the destruction of 
Wolves, foxes, martens, cats, and other vermin within 
the counties of Northampton, Roteland, Oxford, 
Essex, and Buckingham.* 
377-1399. In Richard II.’s reign Wolves must 
have been common enough in the forests of York- 
shire, for in the account-rolls of Whitby Abbey, 
amongst the disbursements made between 1394 and 
1396, we find the following entry of a payment for 
dressing Wolf skins :— 
Pro tewyngy xij pellium luporum .. . . 10. ixd. 
Doubtless the skins of animals killed in some great 
raid made upon them at the instigation of the 
Abbey. 
1399-1413. In Henry IV.’s reign, Sir Thomas de 
Aylesbury, knight, and Catharine his wife, held of the 
king, in capite, the manor of Laxton, inter alia, with 
appurtenances in the county of Northampton, by 
“grand serjeanty “—viz., by the service of taking 
Wolves, foxes, wild cats, and other vermin in the 
counties of Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex, 
Huntingdon, and Buckingham.{ 
Shakespeare has pictured wolves as existing in Kent 
* Rot. fin. 42 Edw. III. m. 13. Dugdale’s “ Baronage,” vol. i. 
p. 467; and Blount, “ Ancient Tenures,” p. 231. 
t+ To ‘‘tew,” or “taw,” an obsolete word signifying to beat and dress 
leather with alum. Nares, “ Glossary.” 
~ Blount, op. cit. p. 260. 
