SUNDRIES.

Itm the same daye paied to one that

toke up a Lanner that had been

lacking a hole yere.

Itm the laste daye paied unto Nicholas Clampe for keeping of a lanneret called Cutte' for one hole yere at

j d. a daye Itm the xxvij daye paied to a s'vñt of my lorde Brayes in rewarde for taking up of a fawcon of the kings in Bedfordshire

It the xvij daye paied to one Richard

Mason for taking up of a fawcon of

the kings besides Hartford

Itm the xiij daye paied to a s'vñt of
my lorde Darcys in rewarde for
taking up of a hawke of the kings
and bringing hir to Yorke place
Itm the xiij daye paied to Iohn Weste
of the garde to ryde into the
contry for an hawke by the kings
comandet

Itm the xxviij daye paid to Willm
Tyldesley, grome of the Chambre,
for lying oute to take hawkes by
the kings comandet.

Itm the xiiij paied to a s'vñt of maister

x š.

81

xxx s. v d.

vj š. viij d.

vj š. viij d.

vij š. vi d.

XX S.

X S.

M

Skevingtons in rewarde for bringing

hawkes out of Irlande

Itm the x daye paied to Garard the

fawconer in rewarde for taking of a

fawcon and a tarsell

Itm the xj daye of Marche paied to Garrat and Richard the fawconers in rewarde for finding the Herons.

xl š.

lvj š.

x š.

The interest which attaches to these curious extracts must excuse us with the reader for their length.

We cannot peruse them without being carried back, in spirit, to an age in which, for all that concerns sport, we would fain have lived to bear a part. Alas! that so delightful a pastime as hawking should have declined, and that we should live to see our noble falcons gibbeted, like thieves, upon "the keeper's tree."

AS Jove assumed the shape of an Eagle, so Juno selected

that of an Owl, for, as Aldrovandus tells us, it was not decorous that the queen of heaven should take on herself the likeness of any small or vulgar bird, but rather that she should be embodied in one whose reign by night was equal with that of the eagle by day. The owl has usually been regarded as a bird of ill omen, and superstitiously considered a messenger of woe. The Athenians alone among the ancients seem to have been free from this popular prejudice, and to have regarded the owl with veneration rather than abhorrence, considering it as the favourite of Minerva, and the image of wisdom. The Romans viewed the owl with detestation and dread. By them it was held sacred to Proserpine: its appearance foreboded unfortunate events, and, according to Pliny, the city of Rome underwent a solemn lustration in consequence of an owl having accidentally strayed into the Capitol.

ง

In the ancient pharmacopoeia, which savoured not a

little of magic, the owl appears to have been "great medicine." Ovid tells us that this bird was used wholesale in the composition of Medea's gruel :-

"Et strigis infames ipsis cum carnibus alas."

While, according to Horace, the old witch Canidia made use of the feathers in her incantations :

66

Plumamque nocturnæ strigis."

The "owlet's wing" was an ingredient of the cauldron wherein the witches prepared their "charm of powerful trouble" (Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 1); and, with the character assigned to it by the ancients, Shakespeare, no doubt, felt that the introduction of an owl in a dreadful scene of a tragedy would help to make the subject come home more forcibly to the people, who had, from early times, associated its presence with melancholy, misfortune, and death. Accordingly, we find the unfortunate owl stigmatized at various times as the "obscure," "ominous," "fearful,” and “fatal” “bird of night." Its doleful cry pierces the ear of Lady Macbeth while the murder is being done :

"Hark!-Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd,

The fatal bellman which gives the stern'st good night."
Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. I.

And when the murderer rushes in immediately after

wards, exclaiming,—

A BIRD OF ILL OMEN.

85

"I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?"

She replies,―

And later on—

"I heard the owl scream."

"The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long night."

Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 2.

The awe, no doubt, with which this bird is regarded by the superstitious, may be attributed in some measure to the fact of its flying by night.

“Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,

The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl."
Henry VI. Part II. Act i. Sc. 4.

And yet, strange to say, the appearance of an owl by day

is by some considered equally ominous :

"The owl by day,

If he arise, is mocked and wondered at."

Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 4.

"For night-owls shriek, where mounting larks should

sing.'

Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Should an owl appear at a birth it is said to forbode illluck to the infant. King Henry VI., addressing Gloster,

says,―