257 
Preference for Marsh Birds. 
all in a niglit; for though the former day none are to he found, yet 
the next morning they will he in every hush. I speak of the west of 
England, where they are most plentiful.” 
Though not valued now as an article of food, the name 
of the Redshank appears in the early lists of B d h k 
provisions. Sir Thomas Browne says this 
bird was plentiful in his day in the marshes, and “ of 
common food, but no dainty dish.” At the end of the 
seventeenth century redshanks were reported to be 
common in Lancashire, but the depredations committed 
on their nests during the breeding season have greatly 
diminished their numbers. 
“ The long neck’d hern, there watching by the brim, 
And in a gutter near again to him 
The bidling snite, the plover on the moor, 
The curlew, scratching in the ouse and ore.” 
(Draytox, The Man in the Moon.) 
Our ancestors seem to have been chiefly indebted for 
the delicacies of the table to the various species of fowl 
supplied by the marshy parts of this island, which were 
then of much greater extent than they are to-day. In 
the L’Estrange Accounts we find curlews ranking first 
in importance. Pheasants and partridges were apparently 
less prized, as they were probably more easily procured. 
The Rev. R. Lubbock {Fauna of Norfolk) points out that 
from the position Norfolk occupies, jutting out as it does 
as a refuge from storms for the weary flights of passage 
birds, and also from the variety of soil which that 
county presents, it must have literally swarmed with 
different species of water fowl. Be notices also the 
curious omission of any account of this district amongst 
older writers on natural history. Sir Thomas Browne’s 
careful list of the birds found there was not written until 
the middle of the seventeenth century. 
S 
