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SOME EARLY RECORDS OF THE CRANE 

 IN KENT. 



BY 



N. F. TICEHURST, m.a.. f.r.c.s. 



I HAVE recently come across the following five early records 

 of the Crane {Megalornis g. gnis) in Kent. The first occurs 

 in the Account Book of the Chamberlains of Lydd (1428-1485) 

 of which a full transcription was published in 191 1 by Mr. 

 Arthur Finn in his Records of Lydd ; the others are taken 

 from the extracts of the Chamberlain's Accounts of New 

 Romney (1384-1570) and the City of Canterbury (1393-1662), 

 printed in the fifth and ninth reports of the Historical Manu- 

 scripts Commission, where they have apparently remained 

 hidden for forty-five and thirty-seven years. These extracts un- 

 fortunately represent barely one-tenth of the whole accounts, 

 so that it is only possible to speculate as to what and how 

 many similar records may yet be hidden therein ; there are 

 also further Lydd Accounts awaiting publication. 



Since, however, there is only one mention of the Crane in the 

 latter during a period of fifty-seven years, and taking into con- 

 sideration.its high reputation as an article of diet, it can hardly 

 have been a common bird in Romney Marsh at the end of the 

 fifteenth century, though it was apparently numerous enough 

 in Saxon times. There is perhaps some confirmation of this 

 furnished by the context of the entry, which shows that the 

 Jurats purchased the bird for their own consumption. It is 

 the only ir stance in the Accounts of a payment for this purpose 

 for anything other than fish, chickens or " wildfowl," there 

 being but very few of the latter, while purchases of several 

 species of birds for gifts to high officials of the Cinque Ports 

 and others are very frequent. It is to this last category that 

 the records from New Romney and Canterbury belong. 



It may be objected that the word Crane was frequently 

 used in those days to denote the Common Heron {A. cinerea). 

 This was undoubtedly the case, particularly in Wales and 

 Ireland, but we have no knowledge that it was ever so used 

 in Kent ; moreover, in so far as the Lydd Accounts at any rate 

 are concerned, there are many mentions of the Heron, either 

 under its own name or one of its well-known variants. The 

 price paid for them, too, is higher than that paid for Herons, 

 which varied from sixpence to ninepence, and agrees with 

 that usually paid for Cranes in other early records. 



