DOTTEREL. 83 
ing and hawking, his favourite diversions; and on the 
following day, “apres que son H[xcellence] eut disné 
avecq sa Mate le duc de Lenox qui l’estoit venu visiter 
deuant disné le menu a la chasse ou l’on courrut le levre, 
fit voller ung espervier et prient des Doterelles, ovseau qui se 
laisse prendre par une estrange manicre ainsy que nous 
avons veu. Ht qui se peult mieulx dire qwescripre.” To my 
friend Mr. J. HE. Harting, of Kingsbury, I am greatly 
indebted for a verbatim copy of such portions of the 
original MS.* as relate to these pastimes, it being 
important to ascertain the name actually used by this 
writer, in order to identify satisfactorily the species re- 
ferred to. He suggests also, and apparently with much 
reason, that “the writer must have enquired the name 
* A great inaccuracy occurs in Sir Frederick Madden’s trans- 
lation, the sentence “They flew a sparrow-hawk and took some 
doterelles” (in the original “fit voller’’—caused to fly) being rendered, 
“they saw a hawk seize some doterels;” the real meaning being 
that “they took or seized some dotterels, while, as we may suppose, 
the sparrow-hawk was flying. The hawk being let loose would 
make the dotterel lie close so that they could be netted, or driven 
into a net; and that dotterel were driven into nets we have Wil- 
lughby’s evidence in his ‘‘ Ornithology” (1678), p. 310. After men- 
tioning the common belief of their extending a foot or a wing as the 
fowler did, he quotes the information of Mr. Peter Dent as follows :— 
“ A centleman of Norfolk, where this kind of sport (the catching of 
dotterels | is very common, told me [Mr. Dent] that to catch dotterels 
six or seven persons usually go in company. When they have 
found the birds, they set their net in an advantageous place, and 
each of them holding a stone in either hand, get behind the birds, 
and striking their stones often one against another rouse them, which 
are naturally very sluggish; and so by degrees coup them, and 
drive them into the net. The birds being awakened do often stretch 
themselves, putting out a wing ora leg, and in imitation of them 
the men that drive them, thrust out an arm or a leg for fashion 
sake, to comply with an old custom. But he thought that this 
imitation did not conduce to the taking of them, for that they 
seemed not to mind or regard it.” 
mM 2 
