124 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
1536. [Dec. 4] Item paid for vii teles, iv wydgyns, i 
malards, iiii spowes, & a dussen & di [18] smalle byrdes 
i) [shillings]. 
[Dec. 24] iv wyggyns. 
1551. [Feb. 22] For a malard, iv wygges. 
xxiiij of Febru. It™ a qrt of Mutton—ij wvggins. 
Neither of these six Norfolk spellings is discoverable in 
“The Boke of Kervynge ”’ (printed 1508), where we have the 
earliest mention of the species, as a ‘‘ Wegyon.” Forty years 
afterwards we find William Turner spelling it Wigene, which in 
1570 had got back to Wigion, and at the present day to Wigeon. 
Saunders gives “ Easterling’ as an old Norfolk name for the 
Wigeon,* possibly quoting from Sheppard and Whitear’s 
list (Linnean Soc., 1826), but I have never met with it, 
and it certainly is not taken from the le Straunge Accounts. 
The only other Ducks which are specified in the Accounts 
are the Mallard and Teal, which were doubtless more abundant 
than now, but “ wyldfowle” is often heard of, which may 
have included other species. Once we meet with the ex- 
pression ‘ wyld malards at 11d. the pece,”’ so perhaps some 
of those elsewhere mentioned were tame ones. Teal were no 
doubt pretty common everywhere in Norfolk, a county so 
well suited to them. Teal is spelled in several ways—tealle, 
teille, tele, teel, teale: a significant entry in 1540 is “ iii mal- 
lards & xiiii teelles for to entre yo" hawkes withall.’ These 
must have been Peregrines about to be trained for hawking 
at the brook, but the Goshawk was also sometimes used for 
Wild Duck. 
The Spowe or Spoe.—With regard to the shore-frequenting 
Waders there are a great many entries. One which at 
once bespeaks attention is variously called spowe, spoe, spooe, 
and spow. These names, which may all refer to the same 
species, come six times into the printed Accounts, and more 
than a dozen times, as I learn from Mr. le Strange, into the 
unprinted. November and December are the months when 
this unknown bird was oftenest obtained, but in 1538 six are 
brought in in September, and twelve in October, on one day. 
This name, which is evidently onomatopoeic, and almost 
identical with the Norwegian ‘‘spove,” as remarked by Dr. 
* Yarrell, ‘‘ B.B.,” 4th edition, IV., p. 400. 
