ESSEX PRE-ORNITHOLOGY. 11
14TH CENTURY.
There is only one item for this period, from the calendar of
the Patent Rolls. 12 Edward II (1319) part II, membrane 26d.
February 12th, York. Commission of oyer and terminer to
Robert de Maddyngle, Humphrey de Waledon and John de
Bouwer on complaint by Jacomina de Merk that John de Lache-
leye and many others (names given) entered her manor at
Lyndesele, co. Essex, broke her houses and gates, fished in her
stews and carried away the timber of the houses and gates as
well as other goods and also her charters and muniments and 6
horses, 8 oxen, 4 cows, 116 sheep and two swans of the price
of 6ol. By K.
15TH CENTURY.
Thanks to the courtesy of Dr. N. F. Ticehurst the present
writer was enabled to print in The Essex Naturalist six Swan
Marks of Essex owners. It is impossible to date definitely these,
but some of them were apparently in use in this century. The
Abbot of Stratford claimed three, the Abbess of Barking one,
the Abbot of Waltham one, Henry, Abbot of Waltham, one,
Sir John Tindall two, and Sir Thomas Golding one. Five of
the marks were used on the River Thames by their respective
owners, and four belong to the Fenland. Four of the marks
are stated to date from at least the latter half of the fifteenth
century.
i6th CENTURY.
In this period we find information of a more definite form.
R. Holinshed in his Chronicles of England gives an exact
account of the appearance of the Short-eared Owl, which I
repeat in the author's language: "This yeare (1580) about
"Hallowntide last past, in the marishes of Daneseie hundred, in
"a place called Southminster in the Countie of Essex, a strange
"thing happened. There suddenlie appeared an infinite multi-
"tude of mice, which overwhelming the whole earth in the
"said marishes, did sheare and gnaw the grasse by the roots
"spoiling and tainting the same with their venemous teeth:
"in such sort that the cattell which grazed thereon were smitten
"with a murreine and died thereof, Which vermine by policie
"of man could not be destroyed, till now at the last it came to