Miscellaneous. 257 
Atlantic; for hitherto their remains have been found only on the 
shores of the Mediterranean. In the fossil state, Ziphii ( Chone- 
ziphius, Duv.) abound in the Antwerp Crag.—Comptes Rendus, 
Aug. 6, 1866, pp. 271-272. 
Notes on the Domestic Animals and Plants of the Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth Centuries. By James E. Toorop Rogers, M.A., 
&e. &e. 
In Prof. Rogers’s recently published ‘ History of Agriculture and 
Prices in England, compiled entirely from original and contemporary 
Records, from 1259 to 1400,’ there are some interesting facts con- 
nected with domestic animals, which, being derived from contempo- 
rary records, are of undoubted authority :— 
* Partridges were plentiful enough, and were, it appears, generally 
captured by hawks, and occasionally in nets. Hares may have 
existed, probably did; but I have never seen an entry of them. 
Pheasants were, it seems, unknown. Rabbits were found in some 
localities, but they were very dear”’ (vol. i. p. 65). 
**T do not doubt that these [hare and pheasant] existed, as they 
are mentioned in chronicles and recited in deeds”’ (p. 33). 
‘The banquet [the determination feast of Richard, the son of 
Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, on Shrove Tuesday, 1398] appears 
to have lasted two days. The quantity of beef and mutton con- 
sumed was not large ; no wonder, for the feast was held in winter ; but 
pork, lamb, and veal were abundantly supplied. Kid is also found ; 
a rare article of food with our ancestors. The poultry consumed in 
the feast is the largest and most characteristic item. Fowls, capons, 
geese, ducks, swans, and peacocks are purchased. Amongst wild 
fowl we find partridges, teals, wild ducks, Gastrimargii (which I 
cannot identify), snipes, plovers, ousels (that is, blackbirds), thrushes, 
and fieldfares, and, lastly, Upupe, which should mean hoopoes, 
though I can hardly imagine that these birds could have been found 
in this country in winter time. The swans and geese were fattened 
in coops on oats and peas. Rabbits, bought as usual at high prices, 
are also found, forty couple of which are brought from Bushey, in 
Herts” (pp. 122-123). 
Chapter xvi., “The Price of Live Stock,” p. 326, contains some 
most interesting particulars. We extract the following :—‘‘ The same 
kind of stock which is now kept on an English farm was kept five or 
six hundred years ago. Oxen, cows, horses, pigs, sheep, and poultry 
were almost invariably reared, though, of course, just as now, lands 
which were either not available for sheep-farming, or were more 
profitably occupied in the manufacture of dairy produce, maintained 
no sheep” (p. 326). ‘Pigs, too, were the most important kind of 
animal food. ‘The necessity of using salted meat during a moiety of 
the year led our forefathers to breed pigs largely, since no meat, it 
appears, takes salt more readily or preserves its nutritive properties 
after curing so fully as pork. And besides, poultry, to jadge from 
the price and from the frequent recurrence of poultry-rents in the 
Ann. § Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xviii. 18 
