FIFTEENTH CENTURY 75 
be lowered with a wire from some concealed hut. In this case 
the arbitrary regulations imposed by one of the great abbeys 
had become too onerous to be borne, and the peasantry rose 
in revolt and slew the Abbot’s wild-fowl, either when they 
were too young to fly, or when they were moulting. A special 
( 
e 
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jury was summoned the following year, and the sheriff had 
orders to fine the delinquents. 
Solan Geese at the Bass Rock.—The earliest intimation 
which we have of Solan Geese at the Bass Rock in Scotland 
is contained in the still preserved “Codex” of the Cistercian 
Abbey of Cupar. This Codex is considered to have been 
written about 1447 by Walter Bower, the Abbot of Inchcolm, 
an island in the Firth of Forth. 
