The bill of Mr. Grenville was a little one,—very small and very timid,—but there was a bird behind it, as large as all the English crows and jackdaws put together. The bird was not introduced until the next year, 1764, when it was tricked off with some bright beads and spangles around its neck, to disguise its genus. But many in England discovered immediately that it belonged to the family _Falco Britannicus_, the genuine old-fashioned British falcon, with strong, sharp claws and curved short bill to seize, and long, powerful wings to bear away across seas, the colonial prey. It is a bird now shot at by every philosophic, well-charged English muzzle whenever it makes its appearance; but at the time of which we speak there were public game-keepers of the Grenville kind, not only in England but in other countries, who believed in training and keeping up the breed of parliamentary or royal falcons for colonial and also for home service. These well-fed keepers stoutly maintained that it was right for these fowls, deigning to leave their royal perches in Hesse or Hanover, to alight for their royal pleasure upon private barn-yards and in granaries, and that the people were proper game and profitable sport, and should even feel honored by the eagle-like visits. It was thought best, however, by the English huntsman of state to send across the Atlantic and exhibit here specimens of the fowl. Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, James Otis, Richard Henry Lee, and others, well acquainted with the game and domestic birds of North America, at once pointed out and denounced the cruel spurs which this short-billed, sharp-clawed British falcon wore. Others, if possible more outspoken, declared their opinion that this bird never could be domesticated on this side the water, but would get its spurs cut away and perhaps its well-feathered neck wrung, whenever it was sent over for real use among the colonists. Meanwhile, Mr. Bull declared that the colonists should not have any molasses to lick, unless he himself brought it and sold it to them. Of course from that time forward New England people got to love molasses with patriotic obstinacy, and above all things liked to tickle it with a straw out of those very solemn-looking and otherwise forsaken casks, lying in the neglected custom-houses at Boston, Salem, Newport, and New Haven. In 1765, the new bird was brought over full-fledged, guarded by numerous fowl-fanciers, who watched it vigilantly on both sides, as the lion and unicorn are represented watching the British crown. But as usual, American quickness to its own interests was quite equal to British selfishness, and, ere the heavy guardians could turn around to see who of the many spectators was teasing and worrying the bird, his feathers were dreadfully plucked, and the poor thing left with exposed claws and crooked bill to the keen ridicule of the by-standers.