82 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
breeder throughout the land, as it is in some parts of 
Europe still, and the Goshawk nesting in small numbers, 
while the Osprey would have been no rare sight, and 
Harriers much too common to call for remark. 
One very interesting tact regarding the Kite, which 
was first brought to the notice of naturalists by the late 
Professor A. Newton, is that the Bohemian Schaschek—who 
in the capacity of guide and Latin Secretary accompanied 
the Baron Leo von Rozmital on his tour in England, 
between 1465 and 1467 and kept a diary in Latin—after 
mentioning London Bridge and the houses that stood upon 
it, goes on to say that nowhere had he seen so great a 
number of Kites as there. They were protected as useful 
scavengers, and probably there was not a large town in 
England without them. The Kites and Ravens in our towns 
also excited the wonder of the Venetian Ambassador Capello, 
an Italian who spent the winter of 1496-7 in England. In 
his Journal, printed in the Camden Society’s “‘ Transactions ” 
(1847), his Secretary, writing for him, says :—‘ Common 
fowls, pea-fowls, partridges, pheasants, and other small birds 
abound here above measure, and it is truly a beautiful thing 
to behold one or two thousand tame Swans upon the 
river Thames, as I, and also your Magnificence have seen, 
which are eaten by the English like ducks and _ geese. 
Nor do they dislike what we so much abominate, 7.e., crows, 
rooks, and jackdaws ; and the raven may croak at his pleasure, 
for no one cares for the omen ; there is even a penalty attached 
to destroying them, as they say that they keep the streets 
of the towns free from all filth. 
“Tt is the same case with the Kites, which are so tame, 
that they often take out of the hands of little children, the 
bread smeared with butter, in the Flemish fashion, given to 
them by their mothers.” This gives a curious picture of 
what London was like in the fifteenth century, when the city 
was built of wood, and its streets were not yet paved. 
Swans on the Thames.—The swans on the Thames were 
no doubt protected, or there would not have been so 
large a number as two thousand. They had already been 
the subject of legislation under Edward III. in 1357, and in 
1482 or 1483 there was again an enactment passed in their 
