68 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
extinct in Ireland is not certainly known, but it seems from 
Ware’s “ History and Antiquities of Ireland’ that there werc 
none left when Harris’s edition of that work was published in 
1764 (see Vol. IL, p. 172), in spite of what Thomas Pennant 
says to the contrary. 
It may be that in the fourteenth century this fine bird 
was an inhabitant of Ireland, as well as of the tracts of 
forests in Gallowedia, Argyle and Scotia. On this subject 
see Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown’s monograph on “ The Caper- 
caillie in Scotland’ (1879), where matter relevant to the 
question is brought together. 
Mr. J. EK. Harting, in a review of Mr. Harvie- 
Brown’s labours in the ‘“ Zoologist,’* further mentions 
fourteenth-century grants of land in Durham (circa 134-361) 
held by the tenure of paying ‘‘one wode-henne.” But 
the question is, were these Wood Hens Capercaillie or 
Black Grouse ? 
Household Accounts in the Fourteenth Century.—Mr. 
Harting, who has dug more deeply than most into the 
annals of the past, quotes a case of several persons 
being fined in May, 1318, at a Court Baron of the 
Bishop of Ely, for collecting Bitterns’ eggs (ova botorum).t 
The Bittern was a regular inhabitant of the Fen country, 
and in many places, owing to the absence of trees, it may 
have been a more plentiful species than the Heron.{ It 
must have been in considerable favour for the table, for 
Bitterns are named in nearly every Dietary. They were 
perhaps less fishy than Herons, but both were in request ; 
the former were recommended to be eaten with no sauce, 
but only with salt.§ 
Of Household Accounts and Charges at Feasts there are 
but few. Mr. Harting has given extracts from a dinner at 
* 1879, p. 468. 
+ ‘Handbook of British Birds,’ Revised edition, p. 217. 
+ The Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, to whose assistance Iam creatly indebted, 
thinks this does not follow, for the Heron will breed on the ground in the 
absence of trees. In Holland Mr. Jourdain has found their nests among reeds 
in shallow water, and at Aqualate, in Staffordshire, a few nests have been 
found in reeds, although there are large trees at hand. The Heron, in Mr. 
Jourdain’s experience, is commoner in Holland, even where trees are absent, 
than the Bittern. 
§ “ Norwich Nat. Tr.,” IV., p. 592. 
