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.
In hard winters elkes[8] a kind of wild swan are seen in no small numbers. in whom & not in com̄on swans is remarkable that strange recurvation of the windpipe through the sternon. & the same is also obseruable in cranes. tis probable they come very farre for all the northern discouerers have [ha struck out] obserued them in the remotest parts & like diuers [&] other northern birds if the winter bee mild they com̄only come no further southward then scotland if very hard they go lower & seeke more southern places. wch is the cause that sometimes wee see them not before christmas or the hardest time of winter.
[8] The "Elke" is an obsolete name for the Wild Swan (Cygnus musicus), which occurs in the present day in the same numbers and under precisely similar circumstances as Browne describes; but of course this was the only species of wild swan known to him. The remarkable recurvation of the trachea within the keel of the sternum, which also prevails to a greater or less degree in four out of the five or six species of Cygnus found in the Northern Hemisphere, did not escape Browne's notice, although he was not the first to describe it, and he rightly observes that this peculiarity is absent in the Mute Swan (C. olor), but exists in a different and even more exaggerated form in the Crane. He, however, was mistaken as to the extreme northerly range which he assigns to this species. So marked a feature as the absence of the "berry" on the beak of this species did not escape Browne's observation, and he refers to it in the eighth [letter to Merrett], who in his second letter to Browne remarks "the difference in the elk's bill by you signified is remarkable to distinguish it from others of its kind," indicating that this distinction was previously unknown to him.
A white large & strong billd fowle called a Ganet[9] which seemes to bee the greater sort of Larus. whereof I met with one kild by a greyhound neere swaffam another in marshland while it fought & would not bee forced to take wing another intangled in an herring net wch taken aliue was fed with herrings for a while it may be named Larus maior Leucophæopterus as being white & the top of the wings browne.
[9] As a rule the Gannet does not approach the shore, except to breed, but follows the shoals of fish far out at sea. The circumstance mentioned by Browne is by no means singular, and several such instances of storm-driven Gannets being captured far inland are recorded. The "Scotch Goose, Anser scoticus," mentioned further on ([p. 13] infra), is also in all probability intended for the Gannet; it is the Anser Bassanus sive Scoticus of Jonston. The "Marshland" here mentioned is a tract of country reclaimed in ancient times from the sea, lying to the west of the town of Lynn, of some 57,000 acres in extent, and bordering upon the estuary of the Wash.
[Fol. 7.] In hard winters I have also met with that large & strong billd fowle wch clusius describeth by the name of Skua Hoyeri[10] [fr struck out] sent him from the faro Island by Hoierus a physitian. one whereof was shot at Hickling while 2 thereof were feeding upon a dead horse.
[10] Willughby ("Ornithology," English Ed., p. 348) gives a good description of the Great Skua (Stercorarius catarrhactes) under the name of Catarracta, a skin of which he says was sent him by Dr. Walter Needham, and rightly identified it with the Skua which Hoier sent to Clusius, but his figure is evidently drawn from a skin of the Great Black-backed Gull. Hoier, whose name so often occurs about this time in connection with birds from the north, was a physician, living at Bergen in Norway. The Great Skua still breeds in sadly reduced numbers on the Shetland and Faröe Islands, but is rarely met with in Norfolk.
As also that [strong struck out] large & strong billd fowle [Clusius nameth struck out] spotted like a starling wch clusius nameth Mergus maior farrœnsis[11] as frequenting the faro islands seated above shetland. one whereof I sent unto my worthy friend Dr Scarburgh.
[11] The bird here mentioned is doubtless the Great Northern Diver, Colymbus glacialis. In another place Browne again refers to it as Mergus maximus Farrensis, which Clusius ("Exotic.," p. 102) calls Mergus maximus Farrensis, a name used by Willughby as a synonym for his "Greatest Speckled Diver or Loon" (p. 341). This bird is known to our fishermen as the Herring Loon, the Red-throated and perhaps also the Black-throated Divers being called Sprat Loons. It is a pity Browne's "draught" is not forthcoming.