254 CONCLUSION. 



the chivalry, the valour, and beauty of Burgundy had assembled — a court 

 without equal at that time for its riches. 



Turning from feasts and revelry to scenes of Irish misery and blood, 

 we find James Anthony Froude (in his ' History of England,' vol. v. p. 223), 

 after describing how the English burnt the cottages and killed the inhabitants 

 of Kerry, with Ormond to aid, says : — " Here Sir Nicholas White, Fulke 

 Greville, and Capt. Bingham climbed a crag to fetch an Eagle from its 

 nest ;" in short, they went out bird's-nesting. 



Was it not Sparrow-catching which made the fortune of the House of 

 Luynes of Dampierre, in France at least ? for Felix M. Whitehurst (in ' Court 

 of Napoleon HI.,' vol. ii. p. 137) says that though previously, in Italy, the 

 family was of the " casa illustrissima of the Alberti," yet " Albert, Due de 

 Luynes, obtained his nomination as page to Louis XIII. because he was very 

 cunning in the art of training Shrikes to catch Sparrows." His subsequent 

 history w^e know. 



When the people of Paris taught their Parrots to scream all day the 

 scurrilous refrain "Perette et Peronne " in the ears of that ablest of the 

 Valois, Louis XL, after his narrow escape from the grasp of Charles the 

 Bold (which, considering the knack that crafty king had of shutting up men 

 in cages, instead of birds, was, to say the least, a risky proceeding), they 

 turned their pets into politicians. 



One might run on to great length in this way ; it is not, however, 

 necessary to exalt the influence which the feathered race has had upon us in 

 the eyes of the members of the British Ornithologists' Union, for wdiom this 

 work has been published — a work which claims no editorial merit, unless it 



