HOUSE-SPAREOW. 213 



noon, not a bird could be seen, as I have proved over 

 and over again, when wanting to shoot one for a tame 

 kestrel. During this interval, I have no doubt that 

 they regularly visited the fields and roads in close 

 vicinity to the city, as they were always back again 

 towards evening ; in autumn appearing just before dark, 

 to roost in the ivied walls, or the clematis and creeper, 

 by the side of the summer-house. 



The late Bishop Stanley, in his "Familiar History 

 of Birds" (p. 89), alluding to the range of the 

 sparrow, in all countries, extending with *^'the tillage 

 of the soil," says, " From certain entries in the Hun- 

 stanton Household Book, from 1519 to 1578, in which 

 sparrows (or as they are there written spowes or 

 sparrouse) are frequently recorded, it would appear 

 that these birds took their place in the larders of the 

 nobility as delicacies with other game, from which we 

 may infer that they were at that time as rare in Norfolk 

 as they still are in some parts of Eussia, owing probably 

 to the same cause, viz., the limited state of tillage and 

 growth of corn." That the sparrow was probably scarce 

 in that part of Norfolk (Hunstanton, near Lynn) in 

 those days is most probable, and for the causes alleged 

 by our late worthy Diocesan, but at the same time he was 

 in error in supposing that the term spowes, so frequently 

 met with in the L'Estrange " accounts," referred to our 

 Passer domesticus. The term spowe invariably occurs in 

 connection with knots, ring-dotterels, redshanks, and 

 other grallatorial species, common enough then, as indeed 

 they still are, upon the Hunstanton beach, and under 

 this name, as I shall hereafter be able to show, the 

 Whimbrel was invariably designated in those old records. 

 Once only, in the same " accounts," is the word sparrouse 

 used, as " Itm xij. sparrouse of gyste" (articles given in 

 lieu of rent), and these being thus entered alone, were 

 in all probability real sparrows, brought as a delicacy by 



