164 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



[vol. XV. 



birds, and in its later editions a note which is perhaps worth 

 quoting, Bk. II., Ch. XXXVI. :— [Translation] . 



" I reckon that I scarcely saw a greater concourse of Kites in Cairo 

 than is to be seen most commonly at any time of the year in the City 

 of London, in England ; for since it is illegal to kill them in order that 

 they may pick up and devour the filth thrown out by the inhabitants 

 into the streets and even into the river Thames itself which flows by 

 the City, they crowd there in very great multitude and are become 

 so tame that they are not afraid of carrying off amid the crowd of 

 people the spoil they have espied while circling in the air on high. 

 While I was there I saw this with amazement over and over again." 



Capercaillie.— There is no mention of this bird in the 

 "Annals " as occurrins; in England, but apart from the dis- 



A Crossbill. From Walter Charleton's Onomasticou Zoicoii. 



covery of the bones of this species in the counties of Yorkshire 

 and Durham (cf. Nelson, Birds of Yorkshire, Vol. II., p. 

 503-4) reference is made in the Zoologist, 1879, p. 468, to the 

 old British name of " Ceiliog Coed," i.e., Capercaillie, and to 

 certain grants of land held in the county of Durham by 

 tenure of paying, inter alia, " one Woodhenne yearly " to the 

 Bishop of Durham for the time being. These are thus set out 

 in Tenures of Land, by Hazlitt, London, 1874, p. 220. 



" Midridge, Co. of Durham. . In the eleventh year of the pontificate 

 of Bishop Bury, 1343, Thomas de Midrigg held of the Lord Bishop in 

 capite one messuage and twenty acres of land with the appurtenance 

 in Midsidge, paying in the Excheqiter of Durham [inter alia) one 

 wood-hen. ..." and on p. 286 : — 



