The Sporting Dictionary, and Rural Repository, Volume 1 (of 2) / Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field

by William Taplin

FOWL

.—Fowl, properly arranged, may be classed under three distinct heads; as DOMESTIC FOWL, consisting of cocks, hens, geese, and ducks. Wild fowl, comprehending, in the general sporting acceptation, only birds of flight and passage, as sea-gulls and geese, wild ducks, widgeon, teal, curlews, plover, woodcocks, and snipes. Game fowl, in the earliest Acts of Parliament, for its preservation, were extended to a very long list, including even the "Heron," the "Mallard," the "Duck," and the "Teal:" these, however, seem to be buried in a legal oblivion, and the whole at present to centre in the PHEASANT, the PARTRIDGE, the GROUSE, or red game, and the HEATH FOWL, or black game; the laws respecting which individually, will be found under their distinct and separate heads.