148 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
Mistle Thrushes as suggested, but it is not very probable 
that “thrie whekeres” for which sixteen pence was paid 
in December 1591 were Wheatears. Neither scrittes nor 
whekeres are included in a list of Lancashire bird names 
printed in Hardwicke’s ‘‘ Science Gossip,’* but scaragrice is 
given for the Water Rail, literally, the timid bird of the grass. 
Prices in Lancashire did not differ sufficiently from those 
at Hunstanton to call for remark: Woodcocks varied from 
twopence to fourpence. 
Hawking items are scattered through the Accounts. 
Thus we find that 9s. 6d. was spent in bringing hawks from 
London, another time Js. 4d. for hawks’ hoods, again 6d. 
for hawks’ bells, and 4d. for beef for them to eat, while some 
necessary repairs to ‘‘ the haucke mue,” 7.e., the shed where 
they were kept, cost 2s. 
Henry VIIL. and Queen Elizabeth fond of Falconry.— 
The sport of falconry, to which our ancestors were enthusias- 
tically devoted, has been shown to have been pursued by the 
le Straunges, as well as by the Lancashire family of Shuttle- 
worth. The popularity which it had attained may be judged 
from Shakespeare’s plays if by nothing else, for they are full 
of allusions to it. Perhaps it was the example of the Sovereign 
which did a good deal to augment a taste for this form of the 
chase, for Queen Elizabeth was fond both of hunting and 
hawking, and in Mr. Harting’s opinion the latter diversion 
had hardly obtained its full development before her reign. 
An observation by the German traveller, Paul Hentzner, may 
be said to confirm this view, in a passage where he remarks, 
when visiting England in 1598, on the circumstance of Falconry 
being then the general sport of the English gentry. In that 
rare and fine old work, George Turbervile’s “The Booke of 
Faulconrie or Hauking,” printed in 1575, there is a picture of 
good Queen Bess mounted on horseback, and gallantly taking 
her part in the chase. Two herons have been roused, and 
three falcons are circling in the sky overhead, preparatory to 
making a stoop, while another has just been cast off at the 
* Vol. XVIII., (1882), p. 164. 
j Little inferior in importance to the le Straunge and Shuttleworth 
accounts is the household book of Naworth Castle in Cumberland, made 
public by the Surtees Society, which commences in 1612 and therefore refers. 
to a later period but is quite as full of items of zoological interest. 
