200 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



he shall, on conviction thereof before two justices 

 of the peace, forfeit and pay for every egg so taken 

 or destroyed, such sum of money not exceeding 5s. 

 as to the justices shall seem meet, together with the 

 costs of the conviction." 



In 1859, at the Spring Assizes at Reading, a 

 case of stealing a Swan was tried before Baron 

 Channell, when the defendant, one Lovejoy, was 

 charged with stealing a Swan belonging to the 

 Dyers' Company. The learned judge held, on the 

 authority of Lord Hale {Pleas of the Crown, vol. i., 

 p. 511), that a Swan, though at large, and a bird 

 fercB natures, was under the circumstances the sub- 

 ject of larceny, being marked. The defendant was 

 accordingly convicted. 



