1891.] Mr. James Edmund Harting on Hawks and Hawking. 357 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, May 1, 1891. 



Sir James Criohton Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.H.S. Treasurer and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



James Edmund Harting, Esq. F.L.S. F.Z.S. 



Hawks and Hawking, 



The result of many years' experience has been to convince me that 

 the art of Falconry (as all the old writers term it), that is, the art of 

 taming and training birds of prey for the chasf, and teaching them 

 to exercise their natural instinct for our amusement and benefit, is 

 really a noble art ; and that the power which has been given to man 

 to exert " dominion over the fowls of the air," when properly exercised, 

 is the greatest and most wonderful form of control which can be 

 exerted by man over the lower animals. 



On looking into the literature of the subject, and it is pretty ex- 

 tensive, comprising more than 300 volumes in fourteen or fifteen 

 languages, two points are particularly striking: — First, the great 

 antiquity of Falconry ; and, secondly, its wide-spread practice. 



In the East, Falconry has been traced back to a period long 

 anterior to the Christian era, and we may form some idea of its 

 antiquity from Sir Henry Layard's discovery of a bas-relief amongst 

 the ruins of Khorsabad, in which a falconer is represented carrying 

 a hawk upon his fist. From this it is to be inferred that hawking 

 was practised there some 1700 years B.C. 



In China it was known even at an earlier date than this, for in an 

 old Japanese work, of which a French translation appeared at the 

 beginning of the present century, it is stated that falcons were amongst 

 the presents made to princes in the time of the Hia dynasty, which 

 commenced in the year 2205 B.C. 



It would occupy too much time on Jhe present occasion to discuss 

 the origin of Falconry, on which a very great deal might be said. 

 Suffice it to remark that from the East it was introduced into Europe, 

 and from Europe, long afterwards, into England. 



On looking into the history of Falconry in Europe, one figure of 

 a great falconer in the middle ages stands out prominently, namely, 

 the Emperor Frederick II. of Germany, who died in 1250. He had 

 seen something of hawking in the East, and in 1239, on his return 

 from a Crusade which he had undertaken the year before, when he 

 was crowned King of Jerusalem and Sicily, he brought with him, 

 from Syria and Arabia, several expert falconers with their hawks, and 

 spent much of his leisure time in learning from them the secret of 

 Vol. XIII. (No. 85.) 2 b 



