90 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
as a curlewe, skeld hym and drawe hym as a henne, then brek 
his leggs at the kne and tak away the bone from the kne to the 
foot, as a heron cut of the nek, by the bodye, then rost hym and 
raise his winges and his legges asa heron, andno sauce but se lt. 
The opening sentence ‘‘sley him in the mouthe,”’ with 
a knife or other instrument, seems to imply that the 
‘“ Brues ” were netted, and kept in pens until wanted. 
Henry IV.—Interesting also are the birds served up 
on other festive occasions, as at the nuptials of Henry IV. 
in 1403, and at the coronation of Henry VI. in 1422.* 
Again there is the document known as Russell’s “‘ Boke 
of Nurture ” (1452) which contains the names of birds, 
of which one is the Stockdove, but both here and in 
‘““The Boke of Keruynge ” (1513), we may take it that the 
appellation of Stockdove is meant to apply to tame Pigeons, 
now kept in large numbers. The birds served at Henry VI.’s 
dinner included the mysterious Egrettes, Curlew, Cocks, Plover, 
Quails, Snipe, Larks, Swan, Heron, Crane, Partridge, Bittern, 
Peacock. One might have expected that Spoonbills would 
have been mentioned in all these Dietaries, but they are not. 
Yet as “‘shovelards”’ they come into one of the vocabularies 
of this century, and under the same name we find them twice 
alluded to in John Russell’s quaint book of recipes, and once 
in “The Boke of Keruynge.” That they made a show at some 
principal feasts is evident, as at Oxford, where under the 
equivalent name of Poplars we meet with them in 1452. 
Perhaps it is worth remarking that in a very different way 
they come into the will of Richard Le Scrop, dated 1400.§ 
* And at the Duke of Buckingham’s wedding in 1480 (‘ Archaeologia,’’ 
1834, p. 311). 
+ See “* A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, written in the Fifteenth 
Century ”’ (1827), Notes, p. 169, and comments in ‘ Norfolk Archaeology,” 
I., p. 276, where the Egret is held by Mr. Dashwood to be the young of the 
Heron. This coronation feast took place on the 6th day of November, 1429. 
t Episcopal Feasting described in ‘‘ Historia et Antiquitatis Universi- 
tatis Oxoniensis ”’ (1674, lib. 1, p. 219). 
§ Here among many other things the scribe has put down: “. . aulam 
meam cum poplars textam, et lectum meum integrum cum costeris de rubeo 
cum poplars et armis meis broudatum . , ”’ (‘‘ Testamenta Eboracensia” 
part I., p. 276). Where designs of birds were used, Spoonbills would be 
a favourite decoration, Examples of this occur more often abroad, but 
as ‘‘ Popelers’’ on tapestry they form an item in the Roll of the effects of 
Sir J, Fastolfe of Norfolk in 1459 (‘ Archaeologia,” 1827, p. 332, and see 
Gairdner’s edition of the Paston Letters, Vol. I., pp. 479, 483). 
