HISTORY OF MANX ORNITHOLOGY XXXvii 
HISTORY OF MANX ORNITHOLOGY 
Our first notices of Manx birds (for the mythological birds 
which are figured on some of our Scandinavian monuments 
hardly assist our knowledge of the island’s ornithology) are 
in some prohibitive enactments of Stanley times; the feudal 
tenure of the kingdom being in fact by the periodical pay- 
ment of Falcons to the suzerain.’ In the description of the 
island in Camden’s Britannia (1586) its famous Puffins 
(Pufinus anglorum) make their appearance, and thenceforth 
are recorded by every writer who touches on the natural 
history of the country, as the ornithological marvel of Man. 
Thus they are noted in 1656 by Chaloner, Fairfax’s 
1 Later passages in the statute-book give us now and then an idea of the game 
rights claimed by the Lord as of ancient custom, especially within what was 
known as his ‘ warren,’ defined in 1586 as extending round Castle Rushen from 
Kentraugh Burne (Colby River) on the west, to Santon River on the east, and 
bounded on the north by the ‘ Feldike,’ thus including all the lower part of the 
parishes of Malew and Arbory. Within these limits no person but the Lord, the 
Captain, and members of the Council are to shoot at hare or fowl, without special 
licence of one of these dignitaries. Such shooting to be licensed only for their 
use, and not that of the licensee. 
In 1748 appears another enactment, apparently applying to the whole island. 
No one is to carry a gun to destroy ‘the Lord’s Game’ without the Governor’s 
licence in writing, and persons carrying about their guns to shoot ‘ Pidgeons, Part- 
ridges, or Grouse’ are liable to a penalty of 20s., half to go to the Lord, and half 
to the informer. 
A definite Game Act, on modern lines, however, was first passed in 1835. The 
preamble, after citing this old legislation, states that it has been found ‘quite 
insufficient to preserve the game, and to prevent apprentices, labourers, and 
others from neglecting their employment and business, and from pursuing and 
destroying game; whereby partridges have become very scarce, and grouse, 
although formerly abundant, are now entirely extinct ; and his Majesty's subjects 
are in constant danger, particularly in the neighbourhood of the towns, of being 
shot or injured by boys, and other idle persons, shooting in the fields adjoining 
the highways.’ 
On the same day as the Game Act (5th July 1833, although the bills received 
Royal Assent and were promulgated only in 1835), the legislature passed an Act 
to prevent the destruction of salmon and salmon trout. (For current Game Act, 
see p, 292.) 
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