FALCONET IN NORFOLK. 13 



though once deemed of so great value as to form no small 

 item in a heavy ransom, or the tenure by which estates 

 were held of the crown, or important privileges were 

 secured to individuals, the noble falcon and his doomed 

 race are now included in the list of vermin, and the price 

 set upon theu' heads depends solely on their rarity in 

 the collectors' hands. Well might some patriarch of 

 the tribe exclaim — 



" Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis." 

 The late Lord Berners (Col. Wilson) kept heron hawks'^ 

 at his seat at Didlington for many years. These were 

 afterwards supported by subscription, but were given up 

 in 1836, and since that time falconry has ceased to be 

 practised in this county, except as a private amuse- 

 ment by one or two individuals. Mr. Newcome, of 

 Feltwell Hall, near Brandon, who probably knows more 

 of the science of falconry than any man in England, 

 continued to keep hawks for some years after the sub- 

 scription club at the Loo had ceased to exist. In 1843, 

 Mr. Newcome possessed two remarkable heron hawks, 

 De Ruyter and Sultan, which were brought from Holland 

 by the falconer Pel, and having been flown one season 

 at Loo, took in their third year, at Hoclcwold and 

 Loo, 54 herons, and in the following season of 1844, 

 in the same localities, 57 herons. De Ruyter was 

 unfortunately lost in that year, on Lakenheath warren, 

 when flown at a rook ; but in the autmnn of 1845, 

 Sultan caught 25 rooks and three herons. This splen- 



* Messrs. Salvin and Brodrick, in their highly interesting work 

 on " Falconry in the British Isles," remark, that these falcons were 

 " Passage hawks" from Holland, and the stock was kept up by 

 obtaining fresh birds from that country. On one occasion, soon 

 after the breaking out of the war with France, the falconers, who 

 were bringing a supply of falcons to Didlington, were taken pri- 

 soners, and sent to the Hague, and subsequently to Paris." They 

 also state that " The hawk-catchers in Holland have, on several 

 occasions, taken hawks that have escaped from Norfolk." 



