CHAPTER II. 
FOURTH TO NINTH CENTURIES. 
Fourth and Fifth Centuries ; Birds known to the Romans.—Sixih and Seventh 
Centuries: Allusions to Birds in Saxon poetry.—Highth and Ninth 
Centuries : Birds known to the Later Saxons. Birds eaten by the Picts. 
British Birds known to the Romans.—Betore dealing with 
any one particular species, it will probably be both helpful 
and convenient to take a general survey of British birds, 
beginning, that nothing may be overlooked, with the earliest 
times. By a survey is here meant an examination of all 
such records and facts as are likely to throw any light on 
ornithology in its broadest sense. It is hoped that some- 
thing of utility may in this way be adduced, but the task is 
not altogether an easy one, and can only be achieved with 
the help of a good library, and with the assistance of friends. 
First, it will enable us to mark the gradual rise of 
ornithology. For a while the study of natural history is 
almost non-existent : then we begin to trace the pursuit of it 
by a few. Having overcome the indifference of the Saxons 
and passed the period of the Norman’s ignorance so far as 
relates to birds, in all matters apart from hawking, ornithology 
at length begins to see light. Progress is very slow throughout 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but in the sixteenth, 
discovery in things of Nature at last is to be found approaching 
the dignity of a science, and after that it rapidly develops. 
Secondly, in taking this course, the endeavour has been 
made, as far as possible, to piece together a sort of narra- 
tive, less by grouping collected facts together, than by 
adhermg to a chronological arrangement. This certainly 
seems the best mode of proceeding, for although it may 
break up the connection of the story, and necessitate a few 
rather unconnected paragraphs, it preserves the orcer of dates 
in their sequence. There are practically no materials with 
which to begin this narrative before the time of the Romans. 
It is true that bird-remains, which were assigned to the Grey 
