368 DAIRY PRODUCE, EGGS AND POULTRY. 



fication required for the pursuit of game by divers Acts of 

 Parliament passed in the early part of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury 1 . I presume that these Acts, being practically modifi- 

 cations of the old forest laws, and apparently intended to 

 mitigate their severity, were to some extent effectual, at 

 least as regards deer and hares, for I have never found the 

 former of these in my accounts, except as presents, and the 

 latter not at all. But other kinds of game are purchased, 

 not indeed constantly, because accounts fail me, but when 

 the fact is noted, in quantities large enough to indicate 

 demand, and a supply which could not have come from any 

 but professional fowlers or country folk. In point of fact, the 

 common practice is hinted at in the preamble of the earliest 

 game Acts, that the object of legislation was to prevent 

 ' idleness and dissipation in husbandmen, artificers, and others 

 of lower rank.' Now I have found in these accounts, 

 pheasants, partridges, woodcock, snipe, and numbers of what 

 are commonly called wild-fowl at the present time, besides 

 birds which are not ordinarily in our days found in a poul- 

 terer or game-dealer's list. 



I find seven entries of the price of pheasants. One is at 

 a very high rate, 8j., and is found in the Star Chamber feast ; 

 others, in 1691, are purchased at Oxford for college feasts 

 there, the price in September and December being given at 

 zs. 6d. But without these exceptional cases the price is 

 a little over 4^., a rate -which does not indicate scarcity. 



There are sixteen years in which partridges are priced. 

 Three of these are on occasions of great feasts, in 1594 for 

 the Star Chamber, in 1617 at a banquet at Bath, and in 1691 

 at Oxford. In 1654 the owner of Mounthall buys partridges 

 in January at is. The most frequent purchases are at Win- 

 chester, where they are frequently found in the few manciples' 

 books which survive. It is noteworthy that they are bought 

 by public or almost public bodies. The average price, in- 

 cluding these four entries is 8f af., without them 6\d. 



1 i Jac. I. cap. 27 ; 3 Jac. I. cap. 13 ; 7 Jac. I. cap. u. 



