200 PROTECTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



names of both Goshawks and Sparrowhawks appear in the 

 public accounts, but from the fifteenth century onwards 

 fashion tended to make the Peregrine Falcon the hawk /#r 

 excellence. 



During the reign of James III, the law macle the pro- 

 tection of hawks general, ordaining in 1474 that no one 

 should take trained or wild hawks or their eggs without leave 

 of the owner of the ground. 



It was probably owing to the careful protection enforced 

 on account of hawking, that birds of prey, including even the 

 Goshawk, which has long ceased to breed in Britain, were 

 common in Scotland in the sixteenth century, for Hector 

 Boece tells us that "of fowlis, sic as leiffis of reif [live by 

 rapine] ar sindry kindis in Scotland, as ernis [eagles], falconis, 

 goishalkis, sparhalkis, merlyonis, and sik like fowlis." They 

 appear to have been widely distributed, for Rogers mentions 

 that "in 1496 the King's falconers were recompensed for 

 procuring hawks in the Forest of Athole also in Orkney and 

 Shetland." Hawks, and it is evident that the Peregrine, 

 now a somewhat rare breeder in Scotland, is the bird referred 

 to, had their eyries at the Abbey Crag near Stirling, 

 and also upon a summit of the Ochils, where the birds 

 were preserved. But the most remarkable Falcons were 

 obtained in the northern counties. Falcons from the eyries 

 of Caithness were sent by James V as gifts to the King of 

 France, to the Dauphin, and to the Duke of Guise. The 

 extraordinary value which attached to well-trained birds must 

 also have tended to keep the breeding-places under strict 

 protection. It is on record that James IV paid ,189 to 

 the Earl of Angus for a single bird, and that in the reign of 

 James VI, a pair of Falcons were valued at ^1000. 



Through many centuries Orkney and Shetland were 

 specially favoured in the quality of their Peregrines, of which 

 frequent mention is made in old charters and deeds. When, 

 in 1 539, the "Channonis of the Cathedrall Kyrk of Orknaye, 

 under ane reverend fader in God Robert be the mercye of 

 God bischop of Orknaye and Zetland" made a deed of "all 

 and haill our lands lyand in Zetland" in favour of "our weil 

 belovit brothir and freynd Schyr David Fallusdell," they 

 specifically included the "halkings and huntings." In the 

 following century it was stipulated that Sir John Buchanan, 



