IIAWKWEED, 319 



falcons; and the sport is in such general esteem, 

 that, according to Olearius, there was no hut but 

 what had its eagle or falcon ; for even the king of 

 birds may be trained to hunt, and they have fre- 

 quently been used for the chase of the roebuck, the 

 antelope, the wolf, the fox, and other animals that 

 are fleet of foot. Such is the swiftness of the 

 stronger kinds of the feathered race, that it is re- 

 corded of a falcon belonging to a Duke of Cleve, 

 that it flew out of Westphalia into Prussia in one 

 day ; and in the county of Norfolk a hawk has 

 made a flight at a woodcock near thirty miles in an 

 hour. 



Scahger asserts, that he saw a falcon belonging to 

 Henry, King of Navarre, strike down a buzzard, two 

 Avild geese, divers kites, a crane, and a swan. Thus 

 we cannot be surprised that men in early days should 

 avail themselves of the assistance of these birds of 

 prey in procuring food for themselves ; and that it 

 w^as a practice of great antiquity there can be no 

 doubt — for, although it does not appear to have 

 been practised by the early Greeks or Romans, on 

 account of the first devoting themselves to the arts 

 of agriculture, and the latter to that of war, yet 

 their authors mention it as the custom of other 

 countries. Pliny tells us, in his Natural History, 

 that in a part of Thrace beyond Amphipolis the 

 inhabitants used hawks to catch birds ; and this 



