12 BRITISH BIRDS. 



• The following affords us some idea of the value in which 

 the Godwit was held as a table bird : — " Furthermore, the 

 bird (which ' the English call the Godwit, or Fedoa '*) 

 is so much like the Woodcock that, if it were not a little 

 larger, and did not the breast verge upon ash-colour, 

 the one of them could hardly be distinguished from the 

 other. It is found in marshy places and on river banks. 

 The beak is long ; but in captivity it feeds on wheat, 

 just as our Pigeons do. With us it sells for thrice as much 

 again as any Woodcock, so much does its flesh tickle the 

 palates of our magnates " (c/. Evans' Ed., p. 45). 



Equally interesting are his observations of the Hobby, 

 Hen-Harrier, Water Ousel (or Dipper ),t Bald-Buzzard 

 (or Marsh-Harrier), Osprey, Wheatear, Sandpiper, 

 Fieldfare, Cuckoo, Black-headed Gull, and many other 

 birds, and though he fell into the prevailing error 

 with regard to the generation of the Bernacle Goose, 

 the fault was hardly his own. Misled by the accounts 

 he had read and heard on this subject, he was by 

 no means convinced, and as he tells us : — " Inasmuch 

 as it seemed hardly safe to trust the vulgar, and 

 by reason of the rarity of the thing I did not quite credit 

 Gyraldus [i.e., Giraldus Cambrensis], while I thought on 

 this, of which I now am writing, I took counsel of a 

 certain man, whose upright conduct, often proved by me, 

 had justified my trust, a theologian by profession and an 

 Irishman by birth, Octavian by name, whether he thought 

 Gyraldus worthy of belief in this affair." The said 

 Octavian, however, not only informed our author that 

 the popular fable was a fact, but, further, " taking oath 

 upon the very Gospel which he taught," stated that he 

 had seen and handled the young Bernacles as they emerged 

 from the fungi of wood rotted in the sea, and even promised 

 to forward Turner " some of these growing Chicks." 



* Vide Newton "Diet. Birds," p. 248. 



t The name " Dipper " was first applied to the Water Ouzel by 

 Marmaduke Tvinstall in his " Ornithologia Britannica." London. 

 1771. 1vol., folio. 



