BIRD. | NATURAL HISTORY. 37 
to profit marvellously, if it be thrown unto them ; for they 
that shall eat of it, will be taken with your hand. 
If you will make Birds drunk that you may catch them 
with your hands, take such meat as they love, as wheat or 
beans, or such like, and lay the same to steep in lees of 
Wine, or in the juice of hemlocks, and sprinkle the same 
in the place where the Birds use to haunt; and if they do 
eat thereof, straightways they will be so giddy, that you 
may take them with your hands. I wrote this out of an 
old written book, wherein I know many true things were 
written, Lupton’s “Notable Things,” bk. viii. §§ 4 and 68. 
Ir you wish to understand the speech of Birds, take 
with you two friends on the fifth day of the Calends of 
November, and go into a grove with your dogs as if to 
hunt, and take the first beast you find home with you, and 
prepare it with the heart of a fox, and straightway you will 
understand the speech of Birds or beasts ; and if you desire 
that any one else should understand it,—kiss him, and he 
will understand likewise. 
Albertus Magnus, “Of the Wonders of the World.” 
Or such wild fowl as are bred in our land, we have the 
crane, the bittern, the wild and tame. swan, the bustard, 
the heron, curlew, snite [snipe], wild-goose, wind or dotterel, 
brant [brant-goose or barnacle], lark, plover of both sorts, 
lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveler, peewit, 
seamew, barnacle, quail (who only with man are subject to 
the falling sickness), the knot, the oliet or olife, the dunbird, 
woodcock, partridge and pheasant, besides divers other. As 
for egrets, pawpers and such like, they are daily brought 
to us from beyond the sea. Our tame fowl are common 
both to us and to other countries, as cocks, hens, geese, 
ducks, peacocks of Ind, pigeons. I would likewise entreat 
of other fowls which we repute unclean, as ravens, crows, 
pies, choughs, rooks, kites, jays, ring-tails, starlings, wood- 
spikes, woodgnaws, etc. Our other fowls are nightingales, 
thrushes, blackbirds, mavises, ruddocks, redstarts or dur- 
nocks, larks, tivits, kingfishers, buntings, (turtles, white or 
grey), linnets, bulfinches, goldfinches, wash-tails, cherry- 
crackers, yellowhammers, fieldfares, etc. 
Harrison's “Description of England,” pp. 222-3, in Holinshed. 
