44 BRITISH BIRDS. 



" Of Hawkes there are Marlions, Sparhawkes, Hobbies, 

 and somewhere Lannards.* As for the Sparhawke, 

 though shee serve to flie little above sixe weekes in the 

 yeere, and that only at the Partridge, where the Faulkner 

 and Spanels must also now and then spare her extra- 

 ordinarie assistance ; yet both Cornish and Devonshire 

 men employ so much travaile in seeking, watching, 

 taking, manning, nusling, dieting, curing, bathing, carry- 

 ing and mewing them, as it must needs proceede from a 

 greater folly, that they cannot discerne their folly therein. 

 To which you may add, their busie, dangerous, discourteous 

 yea, and sometimes despiteful stealing one from another 

 of the Egges and young ones, who if they were allowed 

 to aire naturally and quietly, there would bee store 

 sufficient to kill not onely the Partridges but even all the 

 good-huswives Chickens in a Countrie. 



" Of singing Birds they have Lynnets, Goldfinches, 

 Ruddockes,t Canarie birds. Black-birds, Thrushes, and 

 divers other ; but of Nightingals, few, or none at all, 

 whether through some natural antipathic betweene them 

 and the soyle (as Plinie write th that Crete fostereth not 

 any Owles, nor Rhodes Eagles, nor Larius Lacus in Italy 

 Storkes) or rather for that the Country is generally bare 

 of Covert and woods, which they affect, I leave to be 

 discussed by others. 



" Not long sithence, there came a flock of Birds into 

 Cornwall, about Harvest Season, in bignesse not much 

 exceeding a Sparrow, which made a foule spoyle of the 

 Apples. Their bils were thwarted crossewise at the end, 

 and with these they would cut an Apple in two, at one 



* It seems doubtful whether the Lanner, Falco lanarius {cf. Newton, 

 Diet, of Birds, p. 503) ever bred in this country. Turner makes no 

 mention of it doing so, and though Merrett [Pinax Rerum London, 1 666, 

 1 vol., 12mo), gives it in his list of British birds as " Lanarius, the 

 Lanar " and states that it bred in various places in England, he was 

 most probably referring to some other soecies of Falcon. Willughby 

 also does not include it among the birds found in this country, on the 

 other hand Symon Latham in his " Falconry," 1618, distinctly informs 

 us that it did breed in England. (Book IL, p. 112). 



t i.e., Robins. 



