ds. The case was brought
several times before parliament, which only confirmed the orders of the
kings of France and the ancient privileges of the bird-catchers. At the
end of the sixteenth century the quarrel became so bitter that the
goldsmiths and changers took to "throwing down the cages and birds and
trampling them under foot," and even assaulted and openly ill-treated the
poor bird-dealers. But a degree of parliament again justified the sale of
birds on the Pont an Change, by condemning the ring-leader,

[Illustration: Fig. 163.--Pheasant Fowling.--"Showing how to catch
Pheasants."--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of the "Livre du
Roy Modus" (Fourteenth Century).]

Pierre Filacier, the master goldsmith who had commenced the proceedings
against the bird-catchers, to pay a double fine, namely, twenty crowns to
the plaintiffs and ten to the King.

[Illustration: Fig. 164.--The Mode of catching a Woodcock.--Fac-simile of
a Miniature in the Manuscript of the "Livre du Roy Modus" (Fourteenth
Century).]

It is satisfactory to observe that at that period measures were taken to
preserve nests and to prevent bird-fowling from the 15th of March to the
15th of August. Besides this, it was necessary to have an express
permission from the King himself to give persons the right of catching
birds on the King's domains. Before any one could sell birds it was
required for him to have been received as a master bird-catcher. The
recognised bird-catchers, therefore, had no opponents except dealers from
other countries, who brought canary-birds, parrots, and other foreign
specimens into Paris. These dealers were, however, obliged to conform to
strict rules. They were required on their arrival to exhibit their birds
from ten to twelve o'clock on the marble stone in the palace yard on the
days when parliament sat, in order that the masters and governors of the
King's aviary, and, after them, the presidents and councillors, might have
the first choice before other people of anything they wished to buy. They
were, besides, bound to part the male and female birds in separate cages
with tickets on them, so that purchasers might not be deceived; and, in
case of dispute on this point, some sworn inspectors were appointed as
arbitrators.

No doubt, emboldened by the victory which they had achieved over the
goldsmiths of the Pont an Change, the bird-dealers of Paris attempted to
forbid any bourgeois of the town from breeding can