OTTER HUNTING, FALCONRY, SHOOTING 117 



" The love of this sport had now become a perfect 

 passion — nay, a mania. Europe was inflamed with it. 

 Monarchs, nobles and knights, disdaining the moderate 

 draughts of its pleasures, drained them to intoxication, 

 and lived for them, as for their fame. If a gallant were 

 in prison he would carve falcons on the walls ; if in 

 a court, or in a church, he would bear them on his 

 glove ; if in the grave, they would be figured on his 

 tombstone ; nay, his bride took a merlin to the altar on 

 her wedding day. . . . Not to love hawking was a 

 proof of the grossest vulgarity of disposition, and of 

 many drops of churlish blood." 



And all this has passed into tradition. However, 

 we must not forget that, in the last century, there 

 was an unquestionable revival of the sport, in which 

 the Old Hawking Club, of which Lord Lilford was a 

 member, was conspicuous. One could wish the revival 

 were on the increase, but that is hardly so. 



Lord Lilford would certainly not have wished the 

 destruction of one sport for the sake of another. He 

 was fond of shooting ; it could well go hand-in-hand 

 with falconry. I have shot with him, and (though he 

 was even then somewhat lame) it was a lucky grouse 

 that escaped his gun. 



But it is time that something was said about the 

 practice of falconry. 



Falconers divide the hawks which they train into two 

 classes — viz., long-winged and short-winged hawks. Of 



