14 WILD BIRD PROTECTION. 



In this charter then we find the first Act of 

 Parliament extending protection to any of our wild 

 birds, for it is thereby enacted that 



Every Freeman shall have within his own woods 

 Ayries of Hawks, Sparrow Hawks, Faulcons, 

 Eagles and Herons. 

 By a further Statute of 25 Henry VIII., cap. 11, 

 it was enacted that 



No person shall from 1st March to last of June 

 take or destroy any eggs of wild fowl from 

 the nest upon pain of imprisonment for one 

 year, to forfeit for every egg of any Crane or 

 Bustard 20 pence or egg of Bittour (Bittern), 

 Heron or Shovelard (Spoonbill) 8 pence, or for 

 egg of any other wild fowl one peny. 

 This shows that all these beautiful birds then 

 bred regularly in England, but, alas, with the excep- 

 tion of the Heron, they have now ceased to do so. 



Many subsequent statutes have since been passed, 

 but now most, if not all, of these Statutes have been 

 swept away by the Statute of William IV. (1 and 2 

 William IV., c. 32), by which the Game Laws 

 became consolidated, and the only Wild Birds which 

 obtained the special favour of protection from our 

 Legislature to the year 1869, were the Pheasant, 

 Partridge, Grouse, Heath or Moor Game, Black Game, 



