Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/454

428 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.

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." Now Queen Elizabeth visited Norwich in 1578, or eight years after the date of the Sussex Survey.

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,