SIXTEENTH CENTURY 153 
many birds Turner meant to enumerate as British, but 
evidently the ninety-five to which he gives English names 
are to be so accounted. Not the least singular of the many 
facts, with which his pages abound, is the curious reference 
to white Herons in England, from which we can only conclude 
that Turner had come across an albinistic race of them some- 
where, which is all the more remarkable because Herons are 
little subject to variation. As regards the status of the birds 
of prey, other than those used in falconry, we know but little. 
The Peregrine falcon, and the Gyr falcon prized for their high 
qualities do not seem to have been verv easy to procure, 
while of the smaller hawks, such as the Kestrel, the Hobby 
and the Merlin, there is little or nothing which can be 
said with certainty, either as to their abundance or their 
distribution. Turner, with his usual discrimination, distin- 
guished the Hobby, of which he says: “It catches for the 
most part Larks and Finches, nests on lofty trees, and is not 
seen in winter anywhere.” All, or nearly all, Turner’s remarks 
may be taken as applying to England, unless the contrary is 
stated, yet it has to be remembered that he resided for four 
years in Switzerland and Germany, before the publication of 
his hook. 
What Turner took to be the Sparrow-hawk of the 
English and the Sperwer of the Germans, was the bird which 
we now call a Goshawk, which there is every reason for 
believing was a not uncommon breeder in the British Isles 
(supra, p. 82), while tke real Sparrow-hawk (Accipiter nisus) 
was possibly less abundant than at the present day. The 
bird which Turner had in his mind was large enough to prey 
upon Doves, Pigeons, Partridges, and the bigger sorts of 
birds, and this description fits the Goshawk. Tke Marsh 
Harrier, he tells us, a bird nearly brown in colour (fusco 
proximo), “lives by hunting ducks, and the black fowls which 
Englishmen call couts,”’ its fierce attacks on which he had 
himself often seen. To the Hen Harrier, another plunderer, 
Turner can give no praise, it ‘‘ gets this mame among our 
countrymen from butchering their fowls,” which condemns it. 
Tke Buzzard was probably very generally distributed, both 
as breeder and migrant, in the British Isles, and being looked 
upon as a rather useful scavenger which did not molest 
