STATUS OF THE CRANE 171 
Norfolk and others of twelve Cranes,* to be eaten on special 
occasions, but no exact dates are given. 
In 1555 Sir William Dugdale tells us seven Cranes were 
received as contributions from different peoplet at the dinners 
which took place in October at the elaborate festivities of the 
Serjeants of the Inner Temple, in London. Thirty-six Herons 
and Bitterns were also brought to table. 
In 1567 no less than nine Cranes, all killed in November, 
with five Herons and sixteen Bitterns, were sent from Norfclk 
for a wedding-feast.t The bride was Elizabeth More of 
Loseley, near Guildford, and the ceremony and subsequent 
feasting took place in the Blackfriars, London. Also at the same 
time there were forwarded by the donor, who was a Mr. Balam, 
twenty-two Godwits—prokably Black-tailed Godwits—fifty- 
two Knots and ninety Stints; all these birds came out of 
Marshland, the flat tract between Wisbech and Lynn, and are 
as likely to have been killed in Cambridgeshire as in Norfolk. 
On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Kirtlinge in 
Cambridgeshire, on the 1st of September, 1577, only one Crane 
was provided for her entertainment, as against seventy 
Bitterns, twenty-eight young Herons, and twelve Spoonbills. 
The time of year—Septem ber—was not favourable for procuring 
Cranes, we may assume, or there would have been more. This 
may end the list of Cranes so far as England is concerned, 
although it is likely enough that research could add a few 
more records. But the eleven passages which have been 
called in evidence imply that the Crane was no rare bird. 
Cranes in Scotland and Ireland.—In Scotland there are 
but few sixteenth and seventeenth century records of the 
Crane. In 1503 some live Cranes were brought to James IV., 
when in Dumfriesshire, but possibly, as Mr. H. Gladstone 
suggests, they were only Herons, which were often called 
Cranes.§ In the Household Accounts of James V., 
“Excerpta E Libris Domicilii Domini Jacobi Quinti, 
MDXXV.—MDXXXITI.,|| we find about six and twenty 
* © Hist. MSS. Com.” XIV. Report. app.: VIII., pp. 35, 41, 46, 48. 
+ ‘ Origines Judiciales,’’ pp. 132-135. 
t “ Archaeologia,’? XXXVI, p. 36. 
§ «Birds of Dumfriesshire,’ p. 359. 
|| Contained in ‘‘ The Proceedings of the Bannatyne Club,” Vol. LIV. 
