Richmond, for the estate of Lady Holt Park, in the parish of West Harting; and it lias passed as the other settled estates of that noble family. Various small farms have been subsequently added to it."
That the species referred to in this Survey is the Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) and not the Shoveller Duck (Anas clypeata) seems clear, for several reasons. In the first place, "Shoveller," "Shoveler," "Shovelard," and "Sholarde" are so many forms of spelling the old name for that species, as clearly identified by Sir Thomas Browne. In the second place, the birds in question were nesting "in a wood," where the Shoveller Duck would not be found at any season. And further they were breeding in company with Herons, a habit not uncommon with the Spoonbill as formerly observed in Norfolk, and elsewhere.[1]
As a curious connecting link between these two records, it may bo mentioned that Sir Thomas Browne, when writing of the "hernery" in Norfolk, knew an old man who might have seen the colony in Sussex, for he "wayted on the Earle of Leicester when Queen Eliz. came to Norwich, and told raee many things thereof."[2] Now Queen Elizabeth visited Norwich in 1578, or eight years after the date of the Sussex Survey.[3]
In those days, it appears. Spoonbills were esteemed good eating, and were served up to table with many other fowl, which are now discarded as little better than rank carrion.
Amongst the Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth,
- ↑ "In a certain grove, at a village called Sevenhuys, not far from Leyden, in Holland, Spoonbills build, and breed yearly in great numbers, on the tops of high trees; where also build Herons, Night-ravens (Night Herons), Shags, Cormorants, &c. In this grove every sort of bird (as they told us) hath its several quarter, where they build all together. When the young ones are ripe, those that farm the grove, with a hook on the top of a long pole, catch hold of the bough on which the nest is built and shake out the young ones, but sometimes nest and all down to the ground."—Willughby, 'Ornithology,' p. 289.
- ↑ Letter to his son Edward, dated 1st November, 1680 (Works, vol. i., p. 290). In this letter mention is made of a poor woman, who was then living, at the age of 105, and one John More, who had recently died at the age of 102.
- ↑ "She came on horseback from Ipswich, by the high road to Norwich, in the summer time; but shee had a coach or two in her trayne. She rid through Norwich, unto the bishop's palace, where she stayed a weeke, and went sometimes a hunting on horseback, and up to Mushold (Mousehold) Hill often, to see wrestling and shooting" (tom. cit., p. 289).
