78 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
and “‘hys folkes”’ killed the swine [perhaps semi-wild ones] 
and kept greyhounds which hunted the deer, also ‘‘ he and 
hys company kylled sum by nyght,”’—made “ harepypes ” 
[snares] and destroyed conies,—had young herons out of 
their nests,—set up “a rode nette”’ in the woods to take 
woodcocks,—stole “ coulvers”’ [pigeons] out of the barn,— 
“fyssyd”’ in the park—and went “ by nyght a byrdbattyn 
[bird-catching] dyvers tymes,’—all of which acts were 
contrary to privilege. 
The allusion here is to tame Pigeons in a barn, but they 
were more generally kept in substantial brick towers. owls 
were also largely bred at farms and homesteads, and not 
always for their owners, as many went to supply the religious 
houses, which were by no means entirely dependent upon 
eels and pike! Mr. Denton observes that among other 
services, the cotter had to render poultry, when the lord's 
table or the lord’s falcons required them, but in that case they 
were supplied as part of the tenant’s rent. Occasionally in 
household accounts we come across such an entry as “In 
X. gallinis pro falconibus emptis, xvd.,” or “in gallina empta 
pro faleon Domini Ricardi,”* The guardian of a large rabbit 
warren was an important man, and like gamekeepers of the 
present day, he did not forget to have a “ gallows-tree ” for 
vermin. Such an one was James Radcliff of Byllinforth 
[Billingford near Dereham] in 1490 or thereabouts, who was 
in the habit of suspending all ‘“‘ mysdoers and forfaytours 
[offenders] as wesellis, lobsters [stoats] polkattys, bosartys 
[buzzards] and mayne currys [great curs],”’ and no doubt 
any large hawks or Owls.t In the fifteenth century, 
as now, severe winters from time to time decimated the 
smaller birds by starving them, of which an instance, from 
the *‘Chronicon Anglie ” of Thomas Walsingham, which refers 
to 1408, is quoted by the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain in “ British 
Birds.” { Doubtless the oversea migration went on in the 
east of England in much the same way as described by Sir 
Thomas Browne two hundred years later (about 1662), and 
in fact as it does now. But were there then the hundreds 
* “ Manuscripts of Lord Middleton,’’ pp, 324, 326. 
+ See «* Norwich Naturalists’ Trans.,” V., p. 523. 
i Vol. Ki, yh B67, 
