314 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



Higden (who died about 1360) in his Polyckronicon, 

 and by his translator, John of Trevisa, who lived 



A-D. 1357-1387-' 



King John was very fond of hawking, and it is 

 recorded of him that he used to have great sport 

 flying at Cranes with Jerfalcons, which he received 

 from Philip, King of Norway. He used to hawk 

 in Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Lincolnshire, and 

 Cambridgeshire, as appears by entries in the court 

 rolls of the expenses of the journeys. On one 

 occasion, at Ashwell, in Cambridgeshire, in 

 December 121 2, he killed seven Cranes with his 

 hawks, at which he was so pleased, that for every 

 Crane he feasted fifty paupers, and gave each of 

 them a penny. On another occasion, in Lincoln- 

 shire, he took no less than nine Cranes with his 

 Jerfalcons, and, in the joy of his heart, regaled the 

 poor in the neighbourhood with bread, meat, and 

 ale. 



Nor are these exceptional instances. Edward I., 

 in 1276, received some Jerfalcons from the King 

 of Norway, which were trained to fly at Cranes and 

 Herons ; and in the Wardrobe Accounts of that 

 monarch, under date January 5, 1 298, occurs the entry 

 of a payment to Alexander Coo, the king's falconer, 

 for presenting to the king three Cranes taken in 

 Cambridgeshire by the Jerfalcons of Sir Geoffrey 

 de Hautville. 



Leland, in his Collectanea, has printed, from an 

 old paper roll, the bill of fare at a great feast which 



^ See Higden's, Polychronicon, ed. Babington, M. R. series, 

 vol. i., pp. 334, 335. 



