THE SPARROW-HAWK. 313 



larger and more powerful than the male/ will take Partriclges,- 

 young Pheasants, Pigeons, leverets, and young rabbits. One 

 day in November 1885, when shooting with Mr. Clapham 

 on the banks of the Whitadder at Broomhouse, near Duns, 

 I observed many places in the plantations and by the hedge 

 sides, where Wood Pigeons had been killed and plucked by 

 this Hawk, the feathers being scattered in great profusion 

 round the spot where its prey had been devoured. 



This species appears to have been frequently used in 

 Falconry in olden times, to take the smaller kinds of game, 

 and we find it occasionally mentioned in the Accounts of 

 the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland with reference to this 

 sport. Thus, on the 16th of September 1473, the following 

 entry occurs — 



"Item gevin to a man of Dauid Oguiluiys of Inchmartyne that brocht 

 a Spar Halk to the King,^ . . . . iij s 



Dame Juliana Berners, in her " Boke of St. Albans," 

 mentions that according to the laws of Falconry different 

 kinds of hawks were assigned to different ranks, the priest 

 being entitled to carry the Sparrow-Hawk (the female),^ 

 while to the holy-water clerk was assigned the Musket.^ 



" As a bird of the chase," says Mr. Belany, " the Sparrow- 

 Hawk has maintained a considerable reputation. For a 



1 Rolland, in his Faune populaire de la France, p. 36, says : — " On dit d'un 

 individu qui epouse une femme plus forte, plus intelligente, plus riclie qui lui : 

 ' II fait un niariage d'epervier, la femelle vaut mieux que le male.' " 



2 On the 28th of October 1887, I saw a female Sparrow-Hawk rise from a 

 Partridge which she had killed, and partly devoured, at the side of a hedge, on 

 the farm of Ancrum Woodhead, near Jedburgh. 



3 Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, vol. i. 1473-98, p. 45. 



4 The name given by falconers of old to the male Sparrow-Hawk. It is men- 

 tioned by Shakespeare in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Ford addressing 

 Falstali''s page with "How now, my Eyas-Musket?" An Eyas-Musket is a 

 young male Sparrow-Hawk taken from the nest. 



Rolland, in his Faune populaire de la France, referring to the Sparrow-Hawk, 

 says "II a en commun avec d'autres oiseaux de proie les noms suivants : — 

 Mosquet, M. ancien ProvenQal. Muset, M. Catalan des Pyrenees-Orientales. 

 And he adds, " En fauconnerie, le mot mouchet s' applique a male seulement." 



