MR. T. SOUTHWELL ON THE BREEDING OF THE CRANE. 161 
the old County families and great religious houses so plentifully 
scattered throughout the great level of the Fens. But for this 
purpose special gifts are required, and the skill necessary to decipher 
such documents, as the writer has amply experienced, is not easily 
acquired. The chief reason for my putting these notes together, 
in which there is otherwise little that is new, is an interesting fact 
which has been brought to my notice by Mr. J. C. Tingey, F.S.A., 
the custodian of the corporation muniments in this city, who most 
kindly, in response to an expression of my hope that he would 
take note of any entries of interest to ornithologists he might 
discover in the ancient documents under his charge, pointed out 
to me certain entries with regard to expenditures made by the 
corporation authorities in the purchase of Cranes as presents to the 
Duke of Norfolk and others, one at least of which I think is of 
the greatest possible interest, seeing that it establishes beyond 
question the fact of the Crane having in times past bred in the 
neighbourhood of Norwich, and in a locality which, although 
perhaps as rich then, and long after, in fen-loving birds as any 
such like district in the kingdom, was absolutely unknown to 
naturalists before the beginning of the century which has so recently 
closed upon us. But before speaking of this, it may be well to 
give a brief epitome of the references to this grand bird in past 
times, and to trace, as far as possible, the history of its extinction 
as a resident or regular visitor to this country ; and let me here 
express my indebtedness in this respect to the valuable article by 
Mr. J. E. Karting, in the ‘Field’ of the 23rd of December, 1882 
(vol. lx. p. 890), in which he has brought together many very 
interesting references to this bird to be found in various old 
records difficult of access. 
The earliest mention of the Crane as an inhabitant of Britain, 
I believe, occurs in a letter from Ethelbert II., Saxon king of Kent 
(who died in the year 760), to Boniface, Bishop of Mayence, and is 
due to the king’s love of Hawking, for he asks the Bishop to send 
him over two Falcons suitable for flying at Cranes in Kent ; it is 
also recorded that King John in pursuit of this royal sport flew’ 
his C.yrfalcons at Cranes so successfully that in December, 1212, 
at Ashwell, in Cambridgeshire, he killed seven, and on another 
even more successful occasion in Lincolnshire in February, 1213, 
