52 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
and his expenses during 1289 and i290, which have come 
down to posterity, have been made accessible to antiquarians 
by Mr. J. Webb. The Bishop’s falconer was one Adam Harpin, 
whose doings can be followed in several places. One of his 
principal occupations was catching Partridges, with which 
it was his duty to keep the episcopal table supplied. As 
we find him provided with additional twine for his nets, 
it is evident that he netted them, either at night, or possibly, 
as Mr. Webb suggests, by means of a trained Hawk which 
caused them to lie close. 
How many Falcons he had under his care we are not told, 
but perhaps several. At the beginning of March 1290 the 
Bishop sent a favourite Falcon to Hereford Cathedral for 
cure. In June of that year Harpin is employed in watching 
young Falcons at some eyrie, in order to keep off thieves, 
and catch them when sufficiently fledged, in which occupation 
he seems to have had the assistance of John the huntsman, 
another time the same duty is entrusted to the woodward 
of Cradley, who has a reward for his services—sixpence. 
To these men was entrusted the sole care of the Tiercels and 
Falcons, a task of no slight responsibility. If a Hawk was 
ill, or experienced some difficulty in getting through its moult, 
all sorts of strange remedies were tried, and finally, if none 
of these were effective, an offering was made at some shrine 
for its recovery. 
This offering might take the form of a waxen image of 
the bird, of which an instance is cited by Thomas Rymer, at 
Hereford,* where such a propitiation was placed on the tomb 
of St. Thomas de Cantelupe, with what success we are not told. 
It appears from Rymer’s “ Foedera”’ that Edward I. 
received Gyr Falcons from the King of Norway cn more than 
one occasion, and in 1282, we are told, he sent as a royal gift 
to the King of Castille in Spain ‘“‘ quatuor Girofalcones grisos.”’+ 
From this passage some further particulars are given in the 
fourth edition of Yarrell’s “ British Birds.’’t 
Blount’s “ Fragmenta Antiquitatis.’—Thomas Blount, in 
lis “ Fragmenta Antiquitatis, or Ancient Tenures of Land” 
* T.c., Pref. 1. 
+ ‘Foedera,” 1705. p. 1087. 
t Vol. T., p. 44. 
