199 



THE MAOHELL MS. 



Avifauna of 

 Westmorland. 



Introduction 



of the 



Pheasant. 



The accompanying remarks on this Manuscript have been 

 kindly furnished by Mr. E. S. Ferguson, F.S.A. 



The Rev. Thomas Machell, once Fellow of Queen's 

 College, Oxford, and Eector of Kirkby There, Westmorland, 

 a member of the ancient family of Machell of Crackanthorpe 

 in that county, by his will, proved February 28, 1698, left to 

 Archdeacon (afterwards Bishop) Nicolson a mass of loose 

 papers relating to the history of the counties of Westmorland 

 and Cumberland. These the Archdeacon bound up into six 

 volumes, and placed in the library of the Dean and Chapter 

 of Carlisle. The papers mostly relate to pedigrees and 

 antiquities ; but among them are a few notes on natural 

 history. Mr. Machell's will and an account of these six 

 volumes are printed in the Transactions Cumberland and 

 Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, Vol. IV, 

 p. 1, and a pedigree of Machell of Crackanthorpe, with a 

 notice of this earliest of local antiquaries by E. Bellasis, 

 Lancaster Herald-at-Arms, will appear in Vol. VIII of the 

 same Transactions. 



The notes subjoined have been obligmgly transcribed by 

 Mr. Bell of the Dean and Chapter Library. 



Machell, speaking of Westmorland in general, says : — 



" For Fowle — They haue wood cock partrige g'me, all 

 sortes of plovers (curlew) mawes & wilde ducks, w^? doe not 

 only appear here at seasons, but breed in the countrey. And 

 so likewise do your Gor fowle more polates. But w^ are yet 

 for greater rarityes, Herins (or Cranes) Orspreys, & Eagles or 

 Vultures ; & the mical Doterall ; But, they haue no Phesants. 

 The species of them being soe tame a fowle are long since 

 destroyd, and, since the great forrests have bin depopulated of 

 their wood & verdure, so that there is little or none on the 

 mountanes for want of copses & covert, to fly too at severall 



