Cuapter VIL. 
FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
The Pijteenth Century: Sir Richard Holland. Decoys. William Botoner. 
Birds in the Fifteenth Century. Feasting in the Fifteenth Century. 
Nevile and Warham. 
Most of the old English poets show themselves to be 
fond of nature by their allusions to the names and habits 
of animals. Chaucer’s frequent mentions of birds are very 
apposite, and in this century we have Sir Richard Holland. 
In Holland’s poem of “ The Howlat”’ (¢.e., Owl or Owlet), 
supposed to have been written in 1453, several birds are 
introduced by name—as the Solan Goose (spelled Soland), the 
Bittern (spelled Baytown), the Stork, the Starling, the Corn- 
crake, the Gowk (Cuckoo), the Tuquheit (Lapwing), and the 
Swallow. This curious old allegory was intended to be a satire 
on James II. of Scotland, whose face was somewhat deformed 
and who is here likened to an Owl. It is a literary curiosity, 
not without some meaning for the naturalist. The names in 
“The Howlat ’” may be compared with somewhat similar ones 
in ‘‘ Nomina avium fferorum,” part of a Pictorial Vocabulary 
of about this date, published by Mr. T. Wright.* Here we 
meet with a few specimens of phonetic spelling past puzzling 
out, but the following birds’ names are intelligible :— 
A rodok (ruddock=Redbreast). 
A donek (dunnock= Hedge Accentor). 
A potok (puttock==Kite). 
A mawys (mavis=Thrush). 
A schevelard (shovelard=Spoonbill). 
A thyrstyllecok (throstle-cock=Mistle Thrush). 
A wodake (wood-hack= Woodpecker). 
A howylle (Owl). 
A roke (Rook). 
A rewyn (Raven). 
A cote (? Coot). 
A wagstyrt (Wagtail). 
A schryche (Shrike or Screech-Owl).t 
* “ Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies,’ 1884, ed. Wilcker, I., 
p-. 761. , 
+ J. &. Harting: 
