GAMK BIRDS. 93 



level of the sea, by James Eeside, Esq., now of Island-bridge, and 

 College-green, Dublin; it was congregated with a number of gray 

 plover, and had a companion of its own species ; it was presented 

 to Henry B. Haffield, Esq., R.C.S., being killed near his lodge, 

 on Douce Mountain, and preserved by Mr. Glennon, of Suffolk- 

 street. Another has been shot by Edward W. Winder, Esq., at 

 Sandymount-marsh, County Dublin. 



The Earl of Derby has some living specimens of both these 

 birds, in splendid plumage and health, in his superb aviary at 

 Knowsley. 



HERON HAWKING 



Was once the favourite sport of our ancestors, who enacted laws 

 for the preservation of the species, and the person who destroyed 

 their eggs was liable to a penalty of twenty shillings for each offence. 

 At that time it was a favourite dish with the nobility and gentry, 

 and as much esteemed as the pheasant or the peacock. In the 

 twenty-seventh year of his reign, Henry VIII. issued a proclama- 

 tion, in order to preserve the partridges, pheasants, and herons, 

 " from his palace in Westminster to St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, and 

 from thence to Islington, Highgate, and Hornsey Park." Any 

 person, of whatsoever rank, who should presume to kill or in any- 

 wise molest these birds, was to be thrown into prison, and visited 

 by such other punishments as should seem meet, to his highness 

 the king. 



It is worthy of remark, that Henry VIII. removed the royal 

 hawks (which had been kept tbere during many reigns) from the 

 Mews, at Charing-cross, and converted that place into stables. 

 According to Stow, the King of England's falcons were kept at 

 the Mews, in Charing-cross, as early as 1377, or the time of the 

 unhappy Eichard II. The term " Mews," in falconer's language, 

 meant strictly a place where hawks were put at the moulting 

 season, and where they cast their feathers. The name, confirmed 

 by the usage of so long a period, remained to the building at 

 Charing-cross, though Henry VIII. had so changed its destination 

 as to make it inapplicable. But what, however, is much more 

 curious, is this, that when, in more modern times, the people of 

 London began to build ranges of stabling at the back of the streets 

 and houses, they called those places " Mews," after the old stabling 

 at Charing-cross, which, as you see, was misnamed. 



The most favourite hawk, for hunting, is the peregrine falcon. 

 Ireland has been celebrated over the world, for her hawks and wolf- 



