ii6 OTTER HUNTING, FALCONRY, SHOOTING 



relief, ' in which there appeared to be a falconer bearing 

 a hawk on his wrist.' Aristotle, in his Animated 

 Nature, says : ' When the hawks seized a bird they 

 dropped it among the hunters ' ; and, in a work ascribed 

 to Aristotle, we find : ' Hawks appear when called.' 

 I find that I copied the following from Turner's History 

 of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii., chip, vii., p. 65 : — 

 ' Hawks and falcons were also favourite subjects of amuse- 

 ment, and valuable presents in those days, when, the 

 country being much overrun with wood, every species of 

 the feathered race abounded in all parts. A King of Kent 

 begged of a friend abroad two falcons, of such skill and 

 courage as to attack cranes willingly, and seizing them to 

 throw them on the ground.' Spelman, in his Glossarium 

 Archceologicum «.iys that ' the art of falconry was invented 

 more than a thousand years before ' ; he writing in 1629." 



I will conclude what I have to say concerning the 

 antiquity of the sport by a short quotation from a 

 passage I wrote so many years ago. It refers to the 

 practice in Europe : " We may gather from all this that 

 falconry was tolerably well established as a leading sport 

 in Europe, and possibly in these islands, at a very early 

 period of our history — between the fourth and sixth 

 centuries perhaps ; England, however, being later than 

 Germany in adopting it." 



So much for the facts concerning the antiquity. 

 What was the spirit of those times with regard to the 

 sport } May 1 quote myself once more } 



