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THE WOODCOCK. 
“ Thus ended as good a day’s sport as any one could wish 
to see.” 
The heron, besides affording great sport with hawks, was 
considered, when killed, a delicacy for the table. At the 
ancient City feasts and entertainments to royalty, the heron 
always appeared amongst the other good things ;* and from 
the old “Household Books” it appears that the price usually 
paid for this bird was xijd. Of late years the heron has 
dropped out of the bill of fare, and no longer forms a 
fashionable dish. One of the last records of its appearance 
at table which we have met with, is in connection with the 
feast which was given by the Executors of Thomas Sutton, 
the founder of the London Charter House, on the 18th May, 
1812, in the Hall of the Stationers’ Company. “For this 
repast were provided 32 neats’ tongues, 40 stone of beef, 
24 marrow-bones, 1 lamb, 46 capons, 32 geese, 4 pheasants, 
12 pheasants’ pullets, 12 godwits, 24 rabbits, 6 hearnshaws ,” 
&c., &c. 
Amongst the other “ lang-nebbit things ” which in¬ 
terest both sportsman and gourmand, the Woodcock and 
Snipe received almost as much attention in Shakespeare’s 
day as they do at the present time—with this difference, 
however, that where the gun is now employed, the gin or 
springe was formerly the instrument of their death. 
* Leland states, that at the feast given on the inthronisation of George Neville, 
Archbishop of York, in the reign of Edward IV., no less than “400 Heron- 
shawes ” were served up ! 
