Cuaprer III, 
TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 
The Tenth Century: The Laws of Howel. Athelstan, King of the West 
Saxons. Edward the Confessor.—Legends about Birds: A Fow] of Value 
A New Zealand Legend. The Barnacle Shell. The Raven.—The Eleventh 
Century : Falconry, the Sport of the Normans. Domesday Book. 
England in the Tenth Century. The Laws of Howel 
relating to antmals.—Much has been written about the manners 
of the Middle Ages in England, but bird-life in the time of 
the Anglo-Normans, for want of facts, never can be properly 
described. We might expect the recital of their feasts to shed 
some light upon it, and we do get a few brief items from the 
chronicles of Wilham of Malmesbury, while the later writings 
of Holinshed and Speed, Camden, Joseph Strutt and Wright 
describe the enormous quantity of provisions which were 
consumed. But none of these writers relate all we should 
like to know about the different kinds of birds which were eaten. 
With the beasts of the forest it is rather different, for there 
is more about hunting, end various materials are to hand 
which tell of the Wild Boars and Wolves which were only 
too numerous for the welfare of the people. A good many 
of these anecdotes and references are gathered together in 
Harting’s ‘‘ British Animals Extinct within Historic Times” 
(1880), and afford very sug¢estive reading, as well as valuable 
matter for reference. 
To the tenth century probably belong the Welsh laws of 
Howel, King of Cambria, which have been translated by 
William Probert. From these we learn that there were three 
Common Hunts in Wales—namely, the hunting of a Stag, of 
a swarm of Bees, and of a Salmon. There were also three 
“barking hunts,” so called because the game wes “ treed ” 
or brought to bay by dogs, viz., the hunting of the Bear, the 
Squirrel, and the Pheasant ; and three Clamorous Hunts in 
