22 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
Saxon Chronicle went on, continued by other hands. There 
were plenty of domesticated animals. Food of all kinds, 
flesh of swine especially, was plentiful, and those by the sea 
could, in addition, maintain themselves by fishing. Already 
had begun what was destined to be one of Britain’s greatest 
industries, the catching of herrings, as indicated by a reference 
to it in 709 in tke Chronicles of Evesham, an important 
monastery (67 monks) in Worcestershire. This early Saxon 
herring fishery, which showed enterprise in the population 
not to have been expected at that date, must have developed 
rapidly. We judge that it did so, from what it was at the 
Conquest, see ‘‘ Introduction to Domesday,” by Sir H. Ellis.* 
The names of four more birds are now to be met with 
in the Saxon Chronicle: the Kite, Goshawk, Vulture (?) and 
Raven. ‘These are believed to be correctly identified ; indeed 
the Raven would have been familiar to the invaders. It was 
consecrated by the Scandinavians to the god Odin, and was 
a bird always invested with superstition. 
Earliest Annals of Falconry.—The only other facts about 
Saxon birds, on which complete reliance can be placed, are to 
be sought for in the early annals of Falconry, a sport which 
may claim to be the first form of the chase known. Mr. J. 
E. Harting, who has elucidated this subject with his usual 
erudition, and written some charming chapters about it, 
considers that the date of the introduction of Hawking into 
England cannot now be ascertained.t It must, however, 
have been of Saxon origin, as the Romans have never been 
suspected of introducing it when they came to Britain. That 
it had been practised in some parts of Europe is certain, 
and that the sport was already in vogue in France is also 
known; this much being proved, inter alia, by a singular 
table of seventh century rates obtained from the Lex Ripuar 
and Lex Alaman by Mr. John Whitaker,{t among which we 
* 1833, Vol. L., p. 141. Ellis indicates a great spread. In the eleventh 
century Beccles near Yarmouth had to pay the abbey of St. Edmunds 
thirty thousand herrings. In 1195 it had still further prospered, so much 
so that the fishery at Dunwich in Suffolk, the greater part of which port 
is now under the sea, was able to furnish Henry II. with twenty-four 
thousand herrings. 
+ «‘ Essays on Sport and Natural History,” 1883, pp. 67-68. 
t Taken from that author’s ‘‘ History of Manchester,” 1771 (Vol. ILI., 
p. 347). 
