144 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
As Woodcocks were only visitants, we should scarcely 
expect to find, as in some Cumberland Accounts,* entries 
of hankes of yarn, 7.e., spun wool, for the cockshut net, 
a device used in the west, but apparently not in Norfolk, for 
taking Woodcocks in their evening flight, so le Straunge does 
not seem to have had any at Hunstanton. We have entries 
of “ packethrede for ye haye,” and “‘ a haye of 1 fadam long ” 
(p. 423), which was a net for catching hares, also of ‘‘ twyn 
for yo" foxe netts’’+ which looks as if reynard had been 
troublesome in the poultry yard. 
With the spread of cereal crops, both hares and rabbits 
we may presume were increasing, at all events 1,514 rabbits 
were consumed in the house in less than a year. In one place 
there is an entry which points to another form of sport, viz., 
2 Ib. of twine “‘ for the huntfer] to make up his nett & to 
Mason for [fish-] castyng nettes.” But possibly these were 
only to be used at the stew-ponds, of which some remains 
are still to be seen in the park. Among the many entries 
which Mr. le Strange has marked are three which refer to 
Bat-fowling (or -folding), of which one runs :— 
“1543. [29 December.] Itm Spent in Wildfoule vz., 
v dosen Styntes, uj mallardes, ij ffesauntes, viii ptriches, v 
spowes, j curlewe, ij Redshankes, oon Tele, ij dosen Batt 
flowling Bryddes.” 
Mr. le Strange did not come across any mention of a 
crow-net, yet such a necessary item could hardly have been 
lacking, nor are crow-boys named among the papers. Mr. 
Harting has found a figure of a sixteenth century Crow-net, 
which shows the type commonly used in Leonard Mascall’s 
“ Booke of Fishing with Hooke and Line” (1590).t Every 
parish had to provide itself with one, and could be fined under 
the statute of 24 Henry VIII. (1533) if it were not forthcoming. 
* The following is from the larderer’s book of Naworth Castle in Cumber- 
land. ‘‘ October 23 [1624]. To Robert Stapleton for hempe yarn in March 
for making a drawing net [doubtless for Partridges] vs. : and for iij hankes 
of yarn for a cockshott nett at Brampton parke iijs.”’ 
The earliest reference to a cockeshot is in Wynkyn de Worde's ‘‘ Treatyse 
of Fysshynge with an Angle.”’ 
+ P. 550. 
} See article on “Choughs, Crows and Rooks’’ (* Zoologist,’’ 1894, 
p. 47). 
