6 NOTES ON CERTAIN BIRDS 



about the champian & feildie part it seems they have 

 been more plentifull for in a bill of fare when the maior 

 entertaind the duke of norfolk I meet with Cranes in a 

 dish. 



of the Corporation of Norwich, Mr. J. C. Tingey, F.S.A. ,the custodian of 

 the Muniment Room, at my request, most kindly searched the accounts of 

 the City Chamberlain between the years 1531 and 1549- He there found 

 numerous entries of sums expended in the purchase of cranes, swans, 

 porpoises, &c., as presents to the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and others, 

 and amongst them, on the 6th of June, IS43> a charge for a "yong pyper 

 crane " from Ilickling, which appears conclusive evidence of the breeding 

 of this bird near Norwich at that time. (See " Transactions of the N. and 

 N. Nat. Soc," vii., pp. 160-170.) 



In Wilkin's Edition of the Notes the statement, "I met " with Cranes in a 

 dish should be, " I meet with," &c. , as it is in the original. The occasion 

 referred to was probably an entertainment given by the Mayor of Norwich, 

 on the Guild day in 1663, which in that year fell on the 19th June ; at this 

 banquet Henry, Duke of Norfolk and the Hon. Henry Howard were 

 present, and the latter presented to the City a silver basin and ewer of the 

 value of £60. Can it be that even at that time young Cranes were to be 

 obtained? otherwise the middle of June seems a most unseasonable time for 

 such a dish ; for in a copy of a curious old manuscript, dated 1605, and 

 published in the 13th Volume of "Archseologia " (p. 315), entitled "A 

 Breviate touching the Order and Government of a Nobleman's house," 

 &c. , there is a " Monthlie Table, for a Diatorie" for each month in the 

 year, and the Crane appears only in the tables from November till March 

 inclusive. The modern gourmet would view with disgust some of the 

 dishes included in this "diatorie" if set before him— only to mention 

 among birds, auks, stares, petterells, puffines, didapers, and martins. The 

 crane being "in the dish " must not be subjected to the vulgar process of 

 "kervyng," but in the stilted heraldic language of the day must be 

 "desplayed," whereas a. heron must be "dismembered" and a bittern 

 "unjointed." The price of a crane varied from 3*. ^d. to 5^., and a fat 

 swan from 3^. to 41. The sum of 6d. mentioned in the le Strange House- 

 hold-book, in the year 1533 (see " Archa^ologia," vol. xxv. , p. 529), 

 quoted in Yarrell's "British Birds," iii., p. 180, was only the reward for 

 bringing in a crane killed on the estate. That Cranes must at times 

 have been numerous in Norfolk in the sixteenth century is evident, for in 

 an account of the presents sent to William Moore, Esq. , of Loseley, on 

 the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, on 3rd November, 1567, 

 Mr. Balam, "out of Marshland in Norfolk," sent him nine cranes, nine 

 swans, and sixteen bitterns, with a large number of other wild-fowl. 

 " ArchKologia," vol. xxxvi., p. 36. 



