GAME-LAWS. 215 



According to Fynes Morrison ("Itinerary," 161 7), there 

 was in Ireland " such plenty of pheasants as I have known 

 readie served at one feast." 



The value set upon pheasants and partridges at various 

 periods, as shown by the laws fixing penalties for their 

 destruction, seems to have fluctuated considerably. 



By a statute passed in the eleventh year of the reign 

 of Henry VII. it was forbidden "to take pheasants or 

 partridges with engines in another's ground without license 

 in pain of ten pound, to be divided between the owner of 

 the ground and the prosecutor." By 23 Eliz. c. 10, "None 

 should kill or take pheasants or partridges by night in 

 pain of 20s. a pheasant, and 10s. a partridge, or one 

 month's imprisonment, and bound with sureties not 

 to offend again in the like kind." By 1 Jac. I. c. 27, "No 

 person should kill or take any pheasant, partridge, (Sec), 

 or take or destroy the eggs of pheasants, partridges, (&c), 

 in pain of 20s\, or imprisonment for every fowl or egg, 

 and to find sureties in £20 not to offend in the like kind." 

 Under the same statute, no person was permitted "to 

 buy or sell any pheasant or partridge, upon pain to forfeit 

 20s. for every pheasant, and 10s. for every partridge." 

 By 7 Jac. I. c. 11, "every person having hawked at or 

 destroyed any pheasant or partridge between the 1st of 

 July and last of August, forfeited 40^. for every time so 

 hawking, and 20s. for every pheasant or partridge so 

 destroyed or taken." Lords of manors and their servants 



