12 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



of fine, but he suffered imprisonment for a term, 

 according to the circumstances of the case. Later 

 on it was considered so important to preserve these 

 birds in England and give them every facility for 

 rearing their young, that Henry VII. decreed that 

 any person convicted of taking the nest or eggs 

 of a falcon, goshawk, lanner, or swan, should be 

 imprisoned for a year and a day, and fined at the 

 king's pleasure ; half the fine to go to the Crown, 

 and the other half to the owner of the ground on 

 which the nest was taken. Even on his own land 

 a man was not permitted to infringe this law, but 

 was compelled to import from abroad what hawks 

 he required for sport. When, however, the musket 

 was introduced into England, and people learnt the 

 art of shooting birds on the wing, the practice of 

 hawking declined, and with it the necessity for the 

 stringent laws just mentioned. Accordingly Eliza- 

 beth modified, and in a great measure repealed, these 

 statutes, which more recent legislation has entirely 

 swept away. When we compare the Kestrel of old, 

 strictly preserved, reared, petted, and tamed, with 

 the bird of the present day, which is persecuted on 

 all sides, shot and trapped as " vermin," and either 



