154 



BIRDS. 



unlaw." The above Act for their destruction I have copied out 

 from the old Statistical Account (vol. xv. p. 560). 



Pope Pius II. (Piccolomini), who wrote at the end of the fifteenth 

 century, and who made the curious and erroneous statement that 

 " there are no wolves in Scotland," also stated — no doubt under 

 misconception of the above Act — that "the Crow is unusual in 

 the country, i.e. Scotland, and consequently the tree in which it 

 builds is the King's property." This error is quoted over again 

 in the Trans. Gaelic Soc. Inverness (vol. xxiii. p. 95, in 1897, q.v.). 

 Another Act was passed for the same purpose — the extermination of 

 the Eook in Scotland — also in 1457 ; and we also find that a similar 

 Act was passed in England in 1533.^ 



There is also yet another old Scots Act, or amendment of the 

 first passed in the same year of that reign, which provided for the 

 protection of "ola wilde foulys in mortyme quhen thai may not 

 flie"; and it then goes on to ordain that "all men eft their power 

 distroy nests and eggs of birdes of foulys of rief." -' 



I fear that the misdeeds of the twentieth-century Rook gather in 

 evidence from year to year. Shall I rehearse them 1 No ; I have 

 said enough before, but I can only add — I fear he is past praying 

 for. Eather let me add to the credit side of his account. There 

 seems not a doubt that amongst the good things he does in dry 

 seasons when he cannot "clean the bristles off his moustache "(!), he 

 makes a splendid hunter for things nearer to the surface. He per- 



^ The first of these was against the "Ruk" and "Crawys" and other "foulys of 

 reif." In the English Act there was included also the Jackdaw, and also the Carrion- 

 Crow. In this Act the Jackdaw receives the title of "Chough," "a very ancient 

 English name for the Jackdaw" — the true Chough as now known and accepted being 

 known by the name "Cornish Chough" (Turner), or "Caddo" Chough or "Ka" 

 (Gesner) of other writers. The late Rev. H. A. Macpherson, who appears with his 

 usual care to have gone into this question very fully, was satisfied "that the Jackdaw 

 was the bird proscribed by the English Parliament" (see The History of Fowling, by 

 Mr. Macpherson). And I find also that Sir Arthur Mitchell had arrived at the same 

 conclusion as regards Pope Pius's mistake in his appreciation of the meaning of the old 

 Scots Act, and Sir Arthur fully explains it (see List of Travels and Toitrs in Scotland, 

 1296-1900, p. 24). For a copy of this most interesting work I am indebted to my 

 friend the author. It was published first in the Froc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. (vol. xxxv., 

 Edinburgh, 1902). I have already drawn attention to the other misunderstanding 

 exhibited by Pope Pius ii. as regards the wolf in Scotland. It may be instructive to 

 add that the time set for the inspection of the trees to ascertain whether there were 

 nests left was "at Beltane," as I find quoted by Sir Arthur {op. cit.). 



And this is still more fully treated of in Hume Brown's Early Travellers in Scot- 

 land (p. 27, footnote, q.v.). 



