Note 7 — NOTES[H] ON CERTAIN BIRDS FOUND IN NORFOLK.

In the present day the Crane is only a rare straggler to this country generally at the seasons of its migration; that it was in times past abundant in suitable localities there is ample evidence; that it also bred in the fens of the Eastern Counties there is no reason to doubt, but very little direct evidence is forthcoming, therefore every fact bearing upon this point is of value. Had Sir Thomas Browne written with the intention of publishing his observations he would doubtless have told us much about this grand bird, which would have been of the greatest interest to modern ornithologists, but even the above brief remarks, as will be seen, are worthy of note.

With regard to the occurrence of the Crane in the fens of East Anglia we have the following evidence; its fossil remains have been found in the peat at Burwell, in Cambridgeshire, and in excavating the docks at Lynn. Turner, in his "Avium Historia," Coloniæ, 1544, speaks of having seen young Cranes in this country, and as he passed fifteen years at Cambridge, it was probably in that neighbourhood that he met with them; then again there is the Act of Parliament, passed in 1534 (25th Hen. VIII. c. ii.), prohibiting the taking of their eggs (amongst those of other species) under a penalty of twenty pence. All this is well known, but being desirous to ascertain whether any reference to the Crane was to be found in the records of the Corporation of Norwich, Mr. J. C. Tingey, F.S.A., the custodian of the Muniment Room, at my request, most kindly searched the accounts of the City Chamberlain between the years 1531 and 1549. He there found numerous entries of sums expended in the purchase of cranes, swans, porpoises, &c., as presents to the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and others, and amongst them, on the 6th of June, 1543, a charge for a "yong pyper crane" from Hickling, which appears conclusive evidence of the breeding of this bird near Norwich at that time. (See "Transactions of the N. and N. Nat. Soc.," vii., pp. 160-170.)

In Wilkin's Edition of the Notes the statement, "I met" with Cranes in a dish should be, "I meet with," &c., as it is in the original. The occasion referred to was probably an entertainment given by the Mayor of Norwich, on the Guild day in 1663, which in that year fell on the 19th June; at this banquet Henry, Duke of Norfolk and the Hon. Henry Howard were present, and the latter presented to the City a silver basin and ewer of the value of £60. Can it be that even at that time young Cranes were to be obtained? otherwise the middle of June seems a most unseasonable time for such a dish; for in a copy of a curious old manuscript, dated 1605, and published in the 13th Volume of "Archæologia" (p. 315), entitled "A Breviate touching the Order and Government of a Nobleman's house," &c., there is a "Monthlie Table, for a Diatorie" for each month in the year, and the Crane appears only in the tables from November till March inclusive. The modern gourmet would view with disgust some of the dishes included in this "diatorie" if set before him—only to mention among birds, auks, stares, petterells, puffines, didapers, and martins. The crane being "in the dish" must not be subjected to the vulgar process of "kervyng," but in the stilted heraldic language of the day must be "desplayed," whereas a heron must be "dismembered" and a bittern "unjointed." The price of a crane varied from 3s. 4d. to 5s., and a fat swan from 3s. to 4s. The sum of 6d. mentioned in the le Strange Household-book, in the year 1533 (see "Archæologia," vol. xxv., p. 529), quoted in Yarrell's "British Birds," iii., p. 180, was only the reward for bringing in a crane killed on the estate. That Cranes must at times have been numerous in Norfolk in the sixteenth century is evident, for in an account of the presents sent to William Moore, Esq., of Loseley, on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, on 3rd November, 1567, Mr. Balam, "out of Marshland in Norfolk," sent him nine cranes, nine swans, and sixteen bitterns, with a large number of other wild-fowl. "Archæologia," vol. xxxvi., p. 36.