MEDIEVAL BIRD LAWS. 25 



Legislation in our own days has had for its object 

 the protection of our wild birds, whereas in the 

 days of Elizabeth the legislation was for the 

 destruction of many species — in many cases of the 

 very species which we are now most anxious to 

 preserve and protect. 



It is all a question of the balance of forces in 

 nature, which man is always disturbing, either 

 directly or indirectly, and the particular circum- 

 stances of the case differ very materially in the 

 two periods. 



We have now a teeming and constantly increasing 

 human population, which is trenching more and 

 more upon the space formerly occupied by the 

 wild animals, whereas in former days it was vastly 

 different. The Elizabethan population of England, 

 which accomphshed so much at a critical and note- 

 worthy period in our history, cannot have been 

 more than a fractional part of what our population 

 is now, and consequently the wild animals having 

 more room, must have been proportionally more 

 numerous than now. 



There had been a steady decline in our native 

 Fauna, long before Elizabeth's time. The more for- 

 midable animals, such as the wolf and the bear, had 

 long been exterminated, being animals dangerous 



