PROTECTION OF ANIMALS FOR UTILITY 225 



I think it highly probable that till a comparatively late 

 date, Rooks, Carrion Crows and Ravens were afforded a real 

 and active protection in our towns and villages on account 

 of their services to cleanliness, but that, as with so many 

 habits and customs now curious to us, the very ordinariness of 

 their presence in former days led to its being passed over 

 unremarked by contemporary writers. We must remember, 

 however, that, according to Clusius, vast numbers of Kites 

 were in constant attendance in the streets of London during 

 the reign of Henry VIII, on the look-out for the offal with 

 which the thoroughfares were polluted. 



It has been left to a German nobleman, soldier and 

 traveller, Von Wedel, to record as strange to his eyes, what 

 our own historians passed over in silence, the presence and 

 protection of Ravens as scavengers in our towns. 



"On the 6th [of September 1584]" he wrote in effect, "we rode to 

 Belfart [Belford], twelve miles, and from thence twelve miles again with 

 fresh post to Barwick [Berwick-on-T weed].... The houses in the town are 

 mean and thatched with straw.... There are many ravens in this town which 

 it is forbidden to shoot, upon pain of a crown's payment, for they are 

 considered to drive away bad air." 



Here is obviously a reference to their removal of evil- 

 smelling garbage and the pestilence it engendered ; but the 

 significance of this protection of scavengers is .made quite 

 clear by one Capello, a Venetian ambassador, who, after 

 spending the winter of 1496-7 in England, wrote 



Nor do they dislike what we so much abominate, i.e. crows, rooks and 

 jackdaws ; and the raven may croak at his pleasure, for no one cares for 

 the omen ; there is even a penalty attached to destroying them, as they say 

 that they will keep the streets of the town free from all filth. It is the same 

 case with kites, which are so tame, that they often take out of the hands of 

 little children, the bread smeared with butter, in the Flemish fashion, given 

 to them by their mothers. 



The protection of the Raven and its kind as scavengers 

 was no new feature of sixteenth century life in Britain, for 

 even in Roman times, as the results of excavations indi- 

 cate (although excavators and commentators have missed 

 the significance of their presence) these birds were welcomed 

 in the settlements and cities. 



" The most common birds [found in the excavations of the Roman 

 station of Calleva, now Silchester, in Hampshire]," says Mr H. Jones in 

 Archaeologia in 1892, "after those of the domestic fowl, have been 



R. T 5 



