206 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
break the law. Again, we find that where commons 
are enclosed, and the law says nothing, the people 
are accustomed to assemble together unlawfully to 
tear the fences down, and are not punished. For, 
after all, if laws do not express or square with 
public will or opinion, they have little force ; and 
if, in any locality, the people thought proper to do 
so — if they were not restrained by that dull tame 
spirit I have spoken of — they would, lawfully or 
unlawfully, protect their sea-fowl from the cockney 
sportsmen, and sweep the bird-catchers out of 
their lanes and commons and waste lands. 
Some time ago I paid a visit to Maidenhead, a 
pleasant town on the Thames, where the Thames 
is most beautiful, set in the midst of a rich and 
diversified country which should be a bird's 
paradise. In my walks in the town, I saw a great 
many stuffed kingfishers, and, in the shops of the 
local taxidermists, some rare and beautiful birds, 
with others that are fast becoming rare. But out- 
side of the town I saw no kingfishers and no rare 
species at all, and comparatively few birds of any 
kind. It might have been a town of Philistine 
cockneys who at no very distant period had 
emigrated thither from the parish of St. Giles-in- 
the-Fields. I came home with the local guide- 
book in my pocket. It is now before me, and this 
