202 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



since.' A shepherd captured another Sea Eagle on the top of 

 Black Combe in 1838, and this is believed to have been the last 

 Eagle captured on any of our mountains. 



GOS HAWK. 



Astur palumbarius (L.). 



If Mr. Joseph Bain (the learned editor of the Documents 

 relating to Scotland, published by the London Record Office) can 

 be relied upon to distinguish correctly the species of hawks 

 mentioned in old grants, we must infer that the Goshawk for- 

 merly nested in Lakeland. Not only is the species mentioned, 

 fide Mr. Bain, in a grant which Aliz de Rumeli gave to the 

 Abbot and monks of St. Mary in Furness, but an actual eyrie 

 of the Goshawk is mentioned by the same authority. In the 

 settlement of a lawsuit in 1256, before the five justices errant, 

 Alan de Moleton commuted, among other privileges which he 

 exchanged for an annual rent, his right to the 'eyry of goshawks' 

 in ' Thomas' Wood in Bastonswayt.' x 



The only specimen of the Goshawk known to have been 

 obtained in Cumberland in modern times is an immature bird, 

 preserved at Edenhall. Mr. Hope, senr., who stuffed it, tells me 

 that it was shot when striking a Wood Pigeon. It is said that 

 a Goshawk was shot in a rookery at High House, Stainton, 

 Kendal, in 1849.' 2 But whether the bird was rightly dubbed 

 a ' Goshawk ' is not known. 



SPARROW HAWK. 



A ccipiter nisus (L. ). 

 Common as this hawk must always have been in the Lakeland 

 forests, and difficult as it is to train, early falconers appear to 

 have held it in some estimation. For example, an Inquisition, 

 held March 2 2d, 1270, regarding the lands of Hellwysa, widow 

 of Richard de Vermine, decided that Gilbert de Fraunceys held 

 of Hellwysa the Manor of Routheclif, and paid yearly 2s. or one 

 Sparrowhawk. As late as the fourth year of Queen Elizabeth, 



1 Documents relating to Scotland, vol. i. p. 398. 



2 Carlisle Patriot, March 10, 1849. 



