172 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
references to the Crane, the correctness of all of which may 
be accepted, as the Heron is always separately named. The 
months in which the entries come may be specified: two are 
in January, two in February, as many as seven in Apriland 
four in May, while for the autumn there are four in October, 
five in November and two in December. Although four 
Cranes were taken in May and one as late as May 30th, it 
cannot be said that there is anything here which proves 
breeding. Hector Boece (1526) does not name the Crane, 
which is perhaps surprising, but in 1529 the great bird appears 
among the good things at the Earl of Atholl’s feast. In 
the Rental of Cupar Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in Angus, 
printed for the Grampian Club—an antiquarian society 
which no longer survives—there are (as J am informed by 
Mr. R. K. Hannay) agreements, dated 1541 and 1547, with 
a fowler, that he shall have five shillings for each Crane and 
Swan,* a price which in 1550 and 1554 was raised to six 
shillings and eightpence.t 
The former figure agrees very well with a Scotch Act 
of 1551, fixing the prices of wild-fowl, in which the Crane 
is rated at five shillings.t 
The above are not quite all the allusions to the Crane 
in Scotland, for in 1578 John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, who wrote 
a history of Scotland, speaks of “ Grues plurimi, sicut et 
* Vol. II., pp. 13, 56. 
Vol. IIL., pp. 241, 254. 
In this Act the Heron is not mentioned, but five shillings seems too 
high for a Common Heron. As the Act is little known, a copy of it, from 
“The Laws and Acts of Parliament of Scotland,’’ 1682 (Part 1, p. 276), with 
which Mr. Quinton has obliged me, may be here inserted. It is entitled, 
“ Of the prices of wild and tame meates.”’ 
“Ttem it is statute and ordained . . . That is to say, in The first, the 
Cran five shillings: The Swan five shillings: The Wild Cuse of the great 
kind twa shillinges: The claik [Barnacle Goose], quink [Golden-eye Duck] 
& rute [Brent Goose], the price of the peece, auchteene pennies. Item the 
Plover & small mure fowle, price of the peece, foure pennies: The Black 
Cock and gray-Hen, price of the peece sex pennies: the dousane of Powtes 
[young Moorfowl] twelve pennies. Item the Quhaip [Curlew] sex pennies. 
Item the Cunning [Rabhit] ij shillings unto the feast of Fastens-evin nixt 
to cum, and fra Thine fourth XII pennies. Item the Lapron [young Rabbit] 
twa pennies. Item, the Woodde Cocke, foure pennies. Item, the dousane 
of Lavorockes [Sky Larks]} and uthers small birdes, the price of the dousane, 
foure pennies. Item, the Snipe and quailzie [Quail], price of the peece 
twa pennies. Item, the tame-guse xvj pennies. Item, the capone, twelve 
pennies. Item, the Hen and pultrie, aucht pennies. Item, the chicken, 
foure pennies. Item, the gryse, auchteene pennies.”’ 
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