CHAPTER LXIV. 



WOODCOCKS, AND SNIPES. 



IN legal language wild-fowl were anciently termed fluminece 

 volucres ; and, although there is only a very slight prohibition 

 against their destruction, which can be put in force at the present 

 day ; and that but a vestige of the several statutes which originally 

 subsisted, and threw around the wild-fowler a similar protection to 

 that which was given to the game-shooter, it may, nevertheless, be 

 worth while to introduce here a brief history of the laws, past and 

 present, which apply to this subject. 



The author is not aware of any work, whether a legal treatise or 

 otherwise, which professes to trace, from the Statute-book or else- 

 where, a distinct record of the laws affecting the capture of wild- 

 fowl : therefore, in briefly epitomizing the subject, from its earliest 

 stages, the author will not be accused of plagiarism. 



Wild-fowl were formerly considered game, and are distinctly 

 enumerated as such in the preamble . to the statute 2nd Jac. I., cap. 

 27 j but, according to the present laws, they are not within the pre- 

 scribed definition of the term " game :" they are, nevertheless, 

 recognized by law as creatures of value. There are no lack of prece- 

 dents, in the earliest volumes of the Statute-book, of laws specially 

 framed for the preservation of wild-fowl and the prevention of their 

 destruction. This recognition of the law in favour of the sport of 

 wild-fowling is confirmed by several subsequent acts of Parliament, 

 extending over three centuries. The strictest of those laws were 

 enacted in years long since past, when falconry was the prevailing 

 recreation in the country, and hawking by the brook-side the fa- 

 vourite diversion of every nobleman in the land. 



The first trace which appears, in the nature of a law affecting 

 wild-fowl, relates as far back as the year 1209, when a proclamation 

 was issued by King John, forbidding the taking of wild-fowl, by any 

 means, in England. Holinshed assigns as a reason for this procla- 



