38 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



the term for the annual marking of the swans. Swainsley, on 

 the margin of the river near Hopping Mill, is a corruption of 

 Swansley. In some forests, such as Windsor and Clarendon, 

 swan warding was an important part of the forester's duty. 

 In the latter forest a large number of swans were kept on the 

 river. In Edward III. reign these royal birds were stolen on 

 several occasions. In June, 1327, the prior of Ivy Church 

 and another were commissioned to inquire and search for 

 certain swans which were said to have been conveyed to divers 

 places on the Avon, between Salisbury and Christchurch. 

 Further commissions were issued to recover stolen swans in 

 1331 and in 1345 ; on the latter occasion the stolen birds were 

 said to be worth the great sum of ^100. 



EYRIES of hawks and falcons formed the subject of the second 

 inquiry named in the chapter of the Regard, drawn up in 1229. 

 In the long list of perquisites pertaining to the office of chief 

 forester of Mara and Moudrem, claimed at the 1271 eyre held 

 at Chester, is the right to all sparrow hawks, merlins, and 

 hobbies. 



Sir John de Meaux paid to the Earl of Lancaster for his 

 woods of Levisham, in Pickering forest, 2s. annual rent, and 

 eyries of falcons, merlins, and sparrow hawks. Thomas Wake, 

 in his barony of Middleton, in the same forest, claimed to have 

 eyries of sparrow hawks and merlins in his woods. 



When the regarders assembled in Sherwood forest in 1309, 

 the foresters swore to lead the twelve knights to view, inter alia, 

 the eyries of hawks and falcons. 



Falcons and falconers are named several times in the 

 fourteenth century in connection with Rockingham forest. 



PARTRIDGES and PHEASANTS have been already named under 

 warrens. In 1336 two offenders were fined for catching par- 

 tridges in Pickering forest ; the one delinquent had to pay 3^. 

 4^., and the other 6d. The amounts were in all probability 

 settled in accordance with their social position. 



Part of the privileges granted in the forest to the abbey of 

 Chertsey, by Henry II., was the liberty of taking pheasants. 

 Among the offences dealt with at the eyre held at Guildford in 

 1488, for the Surrey portion of Windsor forest, was the fining 

 of Ralph Bygley in the heavy sum of icw. for being a common 

 destroyer of pheasants and partridges, and a taker of birds. 



