SIXTEENTH CENTURY 135 
quarry, so good for the table, to have been more sought after: 
1533 [September 14th] ‘ij ptryches & a quaylle kyllyd with 
ye haukes.”’ 
1548 [April 29th] ‘ Itm a quayle.”’ 
Pigeons and Fowls.—‘ Stockdowes,” or as it is also 
spelled, “ Stockedoves,” are brought in now and then, in one 
place associated with two Cygnets and a “ brid pye [bird-pie],”’ 
in another with butter, eggs, and a venison pasty. These, it 
is most likely, were either young Stockdoves or Woodpigeons 
taken from the nest, domestic Pigeons being distinguished as 
“ pyggens.”” Certainly where Pigeons of store are named, 
tame Pigeons bred upon the farm must be intended. In 1548 
these latter become quite frequent, the number ordered for 
the house being, as Mr. le Strange informed me, very consider- 
able. In many parts of England these plunderers of grain, 
as one indignant author terms the domestic Pigeons, were 
getting so abundant that loud complaints began to arise*, but 
it was not necessarily so at Hunstanton. Sixteenth-century 
Pigeon houses were in some cases quite substantial brick 
buildings, but whether there were any remains of one at 
Hunstanton Hall in 1833 is not stated. Undoubtedly one 
or more existed, and we also read of “‘ ye olde douffehouse in 
Fryng,” another part of the estate about five miles away. 
In another passage we are told of ‘‘a pound of comyng 
[cummin seed] for the dowes,’’} and again of two “salt stonys”’ 
being bought for the “ dowffhouse,’ presumably at Hun- 
stanton (p. 448). Pigeons are fond of salt, and this may 
have been done to keep them at home. In that case Mrs. 
Margaret Ferefreye, whom the editor supposes to have been 
housekeeper, gave the order, as William Skyppon was clerk 
of the kitchen at a later date,§ or the command may have 
been from the farm. 
* See W illiam Harrison’s ‘‘ The Description of England” (1577) 
and Hartlib’s ‘‘ Discourse on MHusbandry’’ (1651). Harrison says :— 
: Pigeons, now an hurtful foule by reason of their multitudes, 
and “number ‘of houses daillie erected for their increase (which the bowres 
of the countrie call in scorne almes houses, and dens of theeues, and such like) 
whereof there is great plentie in euerie farmer’s yard.”’ Mr. Mullens observes 
that bowres means “‘ boors,”’ or farmers. 
7 P. 513. 
+ 424 
+ P. 424 
§ P. 559. 
