The Spoonbill. 47 



Sir Thomas Browne, a celebrated medical man of tliat time, lias this note in his 

 "Account of Birds found in Norfolk": — "The Platea, or Shovelard, which build 

 upon the tops of high trees. They have formerly built in the heronry, at Claxton, 

 and Reedham; now at Trimley, in Suffolk. They come in March, and are shot 

 by fowlers, not for their meat, but the handsomeness of the same; remarkable in 

 their white colour, copped crown, and spoon or spatule-like bill." 



Mr. J. B. Harting, for so many years the able editor of the " Zoologist," brought 

 other notices of the breeding of this interesting species in England, to the 

 knowledge of ornithologists in 1877 and 1886. In a manuscript " Survey " of certain 

 Manors in Sussex, which he disinterred, the following memorandum, made in the 

 twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, (1570), appears: — "That within half a 

 furlonge of Halnaker Parke pale, on the west side thereof lyeth a parke called 

 Goodwoode Parke ; and by the northest parte thereof lyeth one other parke called 

 Shelhurst Parke, distante from Halnaker Pale one quarter of a myle. And on 

 the north side of that pale lyeth one other parke called Eslden, half a myle 

 distante. In the woods called the Weestwood and the Haselette, Shovelers and 

 Herons have lately breed, — and some Shovelers breed there this yeere." 



Shovelards in those days were considered a delicacy for the table, for among 

 the bills of Henry the Eighth's household expenses, there is a record of his 

 paying for bringing from Cobham Hall "Shovelards to the King's Grace"; and 

 among those of the Earl of Northumberland, there is the entry of sixpence each 

 for " Sholardes to be hadde for my Lorde's owne Mess, at Pryncipale Feestes." 

 There was also passed, in 1534, an Act of Parliament making it penal to "with- 

 drawe, purloyne, take, destroye, or convey any maner of egges of any kind of 

 wildfowle from, or in any neste, place or places where they shall chance to be 

 laide by any kinde of the same wildfowle, upon peine of imprisonment for one 

 yere," and to forfeit " for every ^^^^ of every Bittour, Heronne, or Shouelarde," 

 eightpence. 



Mr. Harting brought also to light an account of an action for trespass, in 

 1523, instituted by the Bishop of London, Dr. Tunstall, against an unnamed 

 defendant " for having broken his close, and for taking Herons and Shovelars" 

 which made their nests in the trees of his park, at Fulham, or as it was anciently 

 spelled Fulanham, which signifies " the habitacle of birdes, or the place of fowles ; 

 fullon 2xA fuglas in the Saxon toong doe signifie fowles, and ham or hame as 

 much as home in our toong." 



At Cobham Hall there has existed a heronry from time immemorial, and it 

 is very likely, as Mr. Harting suggests, that the Shovelards, mentioned above as 

 sent thence to King Henry the Eighth, nested in the heronry there. 



