SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 203 
It is to Browne that we owe, among many other things, 
the first intimation of the Solan Goose in Norfolk, of which 
he says :— 
““A white, large and strong bill’d fowle called a Ganet 
which seemes to bee the greater sort of Larus, whereof I met 
with one kild by a greyhound neere swaffam, another in 
marshland while it fought and would not bee forced to take 
wing, another intangled in an herring net wch taken aliue 
was fed with herrings for a while 2 
Browne alludes to the very great store of Partridges, a 
species which, as already shown by the le Straunge accounts, 
was abundant in Norfolk in the sixteenth century, but goes 
on to say that the Red-legged Partridge (Caccabis rufa) was 
not found. The date of its introduction to England has been 
commonly placed at towards the end of the eighteenth century, 
but it would seem that a few French Partridges were brought 
to England before that. In November 1682 a brace of 
“curious outlandish partridges,’ which may have been of 
this species, were sent to Belvoir Castle.* There is doubt 
about these, but none about some which were bred at Wim- 
bledon in Surrey, prior to 1751, and before that they were 
known to have been turned out at Windsor.t 
Browne is almost the only author who vouchsafes any- 
thing definite about the Quail, which was by no means such 
a common bird in England as some have supposed, though 
probably more abundant in Ireland.§ 
Alluding to the Sheld-Duck, Browne informs his corre- 
spondent that Barganders, 7.e., burrow-ganders, bred about 
Norrold, which Stevenson identifies as Northwold near Stoke- 
Ferry, adding that they are “not so rare as Turner makes 
them.” 
Concerning other Norfolk wild-fowl, about which Browne 
has a good deal which is valuable, some might consider the 
identity of Arts, Ankers and Noblets, all local names, to be 
* 12th Report of The Historical MSS. Commission, II., p. 78. 
+ “ Natural History of Birds ’’ by George Edwards, IV., p. 223. 
t Daniels, ‘‘ Rural Sports,’’ ITI., p. 95. 
§ Robert Payne, writing in 1589, says it was plentiful, and that a dozen 
could be bought for threepence (‘Irish Archeological Soc.” 1841), of which 
later records are confirmatory. 
