228 THE WOODCOCK. 



" Thus ended as good a day's sport as any one could wish 

 to see." 



The heron, besides affording great sport with hawks, was 

 considered, when killed, a delicacy for the table. At the 

 ancient City feasts and entertainments to royalty, the heron 

 always appeared amongst the other good things ;* and from 

 the old " Household Books" it appears that the price usually 

 paid for this bird was xijd. . Of late years the heron has 

 dropped out of the bill of fare, and no longer forms a 

 fashionable dish. One of the last records of its appearance 

 at table which we have met with, is in connection with the 

 feast which was given by the Executors of Thomas Sutton, 

 the founder of the London Charter House, on the 18th May, 

 1812, in the Hall of the Stationers' Company. "For this 

 repast were provided 32 neats' tongues, 40 stone of beef, 

 24 marrow-bones, 1 lamb, 46 capons, 32 geese, 4 pheasants, 

 12 pheasants' pullets, 12 godwits, 24 rabbits, 6 hearnshaws" 

 &c, &c. 



Amongst the other " lang-nebbit things " which in- 

 terest both sportsman and gourmand, the Woodcock and 

 Snipe received almost as much attention in Shakespeare's 

 day as they do at the present time — with this difference, 

 however, that where the gun is now employed, the gin or 

 springe was formerly the instrument of their death. 



* Leland states, that at the feast given on the inthronisation of George Neville, 

 Archbishop of York, in the reign of Edward IV. , no less than ' ' 400 Heron- 

 shawes '' were served up ! 



