SIXTEENTH CENTURY 139 
speed for a short distance, adapted to rabbits, and even 
the hare could not escape so impetuous a pursuer. But the 
Goshawk was quite equal to taking winged game, viz., the 
Pheasant, and we are told no less than thirteen times of a 
Pheasant finding its way to the buttery which had been killed 
by a Goshawk. Goshawks were also flown at Partridges, 
which seem to have been abundant at Hunstanton. On one 
page (529) Partridges, or as they are written “ ptryches,” 
come into the Accounts four times, nine birds altogether, 
five of which at least were taken with a hawk of some kind. 
On another page we have six rabbits, and two Partridges 
killed with ‘‘ ye sper hawke ” (p. 484). This was in 1527, in 
which year the trained Sparrow-hawks, if they really were 
Sparrow-hawks, were very active in the early autumn, 
accounting for two Partridges on August 25th, four on 
September Ist, one on the 2nd, two on the 4th, and five 
on the 5th, besides some rabbits.* 
A female Sparrow-hawk might manage voung Partridges 
in August or September, but that it should be capable of 
taking old ones strong on the wing and full-grown rabbits, 
though possible, would show a very high degree of training. 
It seems most likely that by the term ‘“‘ sper hawke ” in these 
Accounts Goshawk is more often meant.t 
Some of the disbursements in connection with hawking, 
in these well-kept Hunstanton books, are worth quoting. 
Hawks’ food, always spoken of as Hawks’ meat, is often 
set down, and occasionally there are expenses which have 
to do with hawking excursions, and the accompanying 
breakfast (p. 419). One significant entry is for expenses 
when ye went on hawkyng to Woolferton wood for fyer & 
dryncke.” Now we know that in after years a good Heronry 
flourished at Wolferton,t and accordingly it may have been 
Herons, which on that occasion were the quarry. If it were 
* Dates as supplied by Mr. Je Strange. 
j This receives some confirmation ‘from the ‘“ Survey of Cornwall ”’ 
(1602) of Richard Carew. Alluding to the real Sparrow-hawk as employed 
in the sixteenth century for hawking, he remarks that she would serve to 
fly little above six weeks in the year ‘‘and that only at the Partridge, 
where the Faulkner and Spanels must also now and then spare her extra- 
ordinary assistance...’ He evidently regarded Sparrow-hawks as too 
small for this flight. 
t See Morris’s ‘“‘ Naturalist,’’? 1852, p. 204. 
