190 LARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
gravel and curds, the one te scour, the other to fat them in 
a fortnight, and their flesh thus recruited is most delicious.”’* 
To the Norwich philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne, ever 
on the look-out for paradoxes, it seemed inconsistent to eat 
such birds, and at the same time to refuse other animals whose 
food was no more impure,f but we have seen that the plan 
was to diet them, by which means this objection was partly 
overcome. In the “ Health’s Improvement ” of Dr. Thomas 
Muflett, the dictum of a physician in the reign of Elizabeth— 
which refers apparently to this species—inclines to the views 
of Sir Thomas Browne, declaring that ‘‘ Sea-mews and Sea-cobs 
feed upon garbage and fish [and are] thought therefore an 
unclean and bad meat ; but being fatted (as Gulls used to be) 
they alter their ill nature, and become good.” 
Perhaps in no Household accounts are there more refer- 
ences to Black-headed Gulls than in the enterteining papers 
ot Naworth Castle, before alluded to. Here, as Macpherson 
shows,t we come across allusions to the number of young 
Gulls brought to the larderer, the dates at which they come 
in, a carpenter's chargcs for making a pen, and such entries 
as ‘‘a knife to cut the gull’s meat,” and again “a crook for 
the gull house *—this lattcr for the cook to hook them by the 
neck when wanted. Two or three times they are brought 
to the castle with “ sampier,” 7.e., samphire for pickle, or with 
young “ hernsues,” likewise a dainty. Puets always made 
good money, but the highest price paid for them is that 
given by Thorold Rogers, who says they were retailed to 
certain Oxford colleges in 1569-70 at 2s. 3d. and 3s. 4d. apiece.§ 
Names formerly employed for the Black-headed Gull.— 
It is natural that, bearing the name of Pewet or Puet, 
these small Gulls should be commonly supposed by editors 
of sixteenth and seventcenth century accounts to be Lapwings. 
By some inadvertency this mistake has even got into the 
fourth edition of Yarrell’s “ British Birds,’’|| but it must be 
* “ The Worthies of England,’’ p, 318. 
t ‘‘ Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” chap, XXV, 
t ‘ Fauna of Lakeland,” p, 427. 
§ ‘‘ A History of Agriculture and Prices,’’ Vol. III., pp. 198, 696 and 
pref. 
|| Vol, IIT., p. 286. 
