to a hen and a cock respectively. "The worth of a brood-goose is as much as the worth of her nest: and there ought to be in her nest twenty-four goslings. The worth of each of these is a half-penny, or a sheaf of barley; and that until they lay, and after that each is one legal penny in value; thus a brood-goose is twelve pence in value." (Ven. Code, B. III. ch. XI. and XII.) In the other parts of Wales, but why we cannot tell, a goose was as valuable as a gander, and a cock only equal to a hen (perchance there was woman suffrage there), and the codes say that a gosling, while it remained under the wings of its mother, was one curt penny in value; from its quitting its mother's wings until August it was worth one legal penny and on the first of August it became of the same worth as its mother, two legal pence. (Gwent. Code, B. II. ch. XV. and XVI; Dim. Code, B. III. ch. XXXIII.) According to these laws a stealer of tame fowls was more le niently dealt with than other thieves : he was not liable to be hanged, nor to be sold as a slave, nor to a dirwy, nor yet to a camlwrw, as were others who stole : he was set free upon paying to their owner the legal worth of the fowls. Of course the owner had to prove his property: the law required that, when swearing to an animal, the claim ant should take the right ear of the creature by his left hand, and, laying his right upon a relic, swear. " There is no ear to a bird, how then is it possible to swear to it? " asks old Howel Dha, and he answers himself, "The hand can be placed on its head; and if a tame fowl, then swear there was no true owner of it other than himself." If a cock or a gander injured a male of his own kind no recompense had to be made by the owner of the one to the other; but otherwise if a pugnacious cock killed any other ani mal. (Dim. Code, B. III. ch. VIII.; Anom alous Laws, B. XIV. ch. 26; lb. B. IV. ch. I.) People in that principality who raised poultry had to keep them at home, for thus
saith the law : " Whoever shall find geese in his corn, let him cut a stick as long as from his elbow to the end of his little finger, and as thick as he may will, and let him kill the geese in the corn with the stick; and those he may kill out of the corn let him pay for. Geese that may be found damaging corn, through a barn or through a corn-yard, let a rod be tightened round their neck and let them remain there until they die. Whoever shall find a hen in his flax-garden or in his barn, let him detain the hen until the owner shall release her with an egg; or, if he catch the cock, let him cut one of his claws and let him loose, or take a hen egg for him for every hen there shall be in the house. (Dim. Code B. II. ch. XXV.) It would add to the peace of civilized communities were some definite laws like these in force now-adays. When husband and wife resolved to part company, and made the necessary division of the joint property, the law said that the man was to have all the poultry and one of the cats, the rest of the cats went to the wife. (Dim. Code, B. II., ch. I.) The Kuran holds every fowl accountable for the injuries done to each other, but re serves their punishment for the life to come. A couple of hundred years ago those in teresting tribunals, the ecclesiastical courts, were wont to hurl their fulminations against birds when they considered them injurious. Baron de la Hontan relates that the Bishop of Montreal, more than once, excommuni cated the wild pigeons in Canada, because their number was so great they did great damage to the fruits of the earth (Nouveaux Voyages dans TAmerique Septentrionale, Let. XI.); and Chasseneux men tions an excommunication, by a bishop, against sparrows that troubled the wor shippers in a certain church and otherwise misconducted themselves. We would refer our readers to the third volume of the Green Bag (p. 351), for an interesting Scotch case of a carrier pigeon
