•j92 mu. W. H. BIDWELL on some ohsolete dishes. 
grow excessively fat, being mewed and fed with corn ; a caudle lighted 
in the room, they feed day and night, and when they are at the 
height of fatness they begin to grow lame and are then killed.” 
^Vn interesting note on the mewing of ruffs and knots at Felbrigge 
appeared in our ‘ Transactions ’ (vol. iv. p. 393). 
The dotterel, Dr. Fuller tells us, is “a miiih-maldng bird, so 
ruliculaudy mimical that he is easily caught (or rather catchefh 
himxclf) by his oaer actice imitation. .Vs tlie fowder stretcheth 
forth his arm^ and legs going toM’^ards the bird, the bird extendeth 
his legs and icings approaching the fonder till surprised in the net ; 
• but it is observed that the foolishor the Fowl or Fish ( Woodcoclcs, 
Dotterels, Codsheads, the finer the llesh thereof” (‘ Ilistoiy 
of tlie Worthies of England, Lincolnshire’). 
All kinds of ndld ducks ■were brought to table, and before being 
eaten were “unbraced.” 
The framers of the oath in “ the charge for the mess-sergeants ” 
in Norwich, in the reign of Henry VII., appear to have been in 
doubt where to class the llcsh of ndld fowl. Part of the oath as given 
by lUomlield is : “ Ye shall also sulfer no bakers to bye whete 
before X of the belle; no cook, no llesh, fyssh, no wilde foule, before 
IX of the belle, as the ordinance of this city is.” 
One writer tells us that “ shovellers feed most commonly upon 
the sea coast upon cockles and shellfish,” but “being taken home 
and dieted on new garbage they are nothing inferior to fatted gulls.” 
IMr. Stevenson, in his paper on Scoulton Gullery (Trans. Norfolk 
and Norwich Nat. Soc. vol. i. p. 24) says: “ We have abundant 
evidence that in former times the young birds were taken in 
considerable numbers and met a ready sale in provincial and London 
markets. ” lie (Quotes from the N orthumberland ‘ Household Book ’ : 
“It is thought good that seagulls be hadde for my Lord’s own 
mces and none other, so they be good and in season, ’’and from ‘Grave’s 
British Ornithology’ : “Formerly this bird (the black-headed gull) was 
held in esteem as an article of food, they were taken whilst young, 
before they were able to fly, by driving them into nets, and when 
fattened on offal wore sold for the table at five shillings the dozen.” 
In ‘Fuller’s Worthies’ we find mention of this practice of 
fatting gulls : “There is an island of some two hundred acres near 
Harwich, called The Puit Island from Puits, in effect the sole 
inhabitants thereof Being young they consist only of 
