FIFTEENTH CENTURY 79 
of thousands of Rooks, Starlings and Skylarks that there 
are at the present day? This is greatly to be doubted, 
indeed it is improbable, considering the changed condi- 
tions of the country: some species which are now very 
plentiful may then have been very scarce. Throughout 
England there must have been a considerable difference 
among the resident birds. In the county of Norfolk alone 
at least thirteen sorts of birds could be named which have 
now ceased to nest there, all of them species which there 
is every reason to assert bred and were unmolested in the 
fifteenth century. It may well be that the number is far 
more than thirteen. Five hundred years ago the agricultural 
conditions so favourable for the Chaffinch did not exist; 
trimmed Thorns and Privet hedges, dear to the Greenfinch 
and the Linnet, were few and far between. Some few Box 
bushes for the Bullfinch to nest in were to be found, but, 
assuredly, congenial ricks and stack-yards for the House 
Sparrow were not so plentiful as they are now, while in those 
remote times there would have been no Laurel shrubberies 
for the Thrush and no large planted fruit-gardens for the 
Blackbird. The Bunting and the sprightly Yellow Hammer 
would have had less grain to live upon than now ; but, on the 
other hand, the handsome Reed Bunting, with the greater 
extent of marsh, might have been more plentiful than it 
is. The confiding Robin, so long known by its Saxon 
appellation of ruddock, which is still the surname of some 
families, would hardly have been at every humble door, as 
nowadays. It is likely, although incapable of proof, that 
Swallows and Martins were far less abundant then than at 
the present day, for in Great Britain they appear to have 
thriven with house-building. The multiplication of nesting 
sites tends to increase a species, just as does the tilling of 
land favourably affect those game birds which seek their food 
upon its surface. The Jackdaw, perhaps less common than 
at the present day, appears to have been none the less trouble- 
some.—‘‘ Pro exclusione nodularum ab ecclesia’ we read in 
1410 in the ancient account-rolls of the Abbey of Durham.* 
They often found their way into churches and cathedrals, 
which led to such entries as the above. Small birds were not. 
* Publications of the Surtees Society,’ Vol. C. (1899). 
