10 THE WILD-FOWLER, 



It is also stated tliat some of the arcliers of those days, were 

 enabled to direct their shafts with such imerring- precision, that their 

 aim was always directed to the h ad of any larg-e bird, rather than 

 the fairer mark presented by the body ; and that wild-fowl so bag-ged, 

 were of greater value, and more saleable, because of there being no 

 wound in the flesh. A circumstance is also recorded of small birds 

 being" placed on the back of a cow, and killed with bow and arrow 

 without injury to the animal.* Accomplishments of this nature 

 would seem almost to vie with those of William Tell. 



The diversion of falconry as appertaining" to the capture of wild- 

 fowl, is not near so ancient as that of taking" them with nets, snares^ 

 and traps. Plavius Blondus, who wrote in the fifteenth century, 

 negatives the assertion that falconry was a pastime of the ancient 

 Greeks, and positively affirms that no nation or people were accus- 

 tomed, previously to the thirteenth century, to catch either land or 

 water-fowl with any rapacious bird trained for the purpose. And 

 Rig-ault is of the same opinion, f Pancirollus and Salmuth also both 

 concur. 



The Roman laws distinctly recognize this method of fowling- — 



" Ne is qui duntaxat iter per fundum meum fecerit, aut avem egerit venatusve 

 fuerit, sine ullo opere, hoe interdicto teneatur."J 



Fowling- by means of rapacious birds must have been used in Italy 

 at a very early age, for it is spoken of both by Martial and Apuleius 

 as an art generally known and practised in that country. 



^lian mentions, that in Thrace hawks used to accompany the 

 fowlers when they went in quest of birds in the fens. The fowlers 

 having spread their nets, remained quiet; whilst the hawks flew 

 about, terrifying- the birds, and driving them into them.§ 



The same author also states, that the Thracians, when they caught 

 birds, used to divide them with the hawks, by which means they 

 rendered them faithful partners in fowling ; and that if they had not 



* Carew's Cornwall, p. 73a. 



t Vide also Jos. Scaliger, Comment, in Cirin., fol. 344. Also, Preface to Scrip- 

 tores Rei accipitrarisB. 



:J: Digest, lib. xliii. tit. 24, s. 22. 



§ " Eos in Thracia auditione acfepi ad lianc rationem cum hominibus per paludes 

 societatem aucupandi coire : liomines expansis retibus quiescere, accipitres autem 

 supervolantes exterrere avos, ac intra retium ambitum compellere." — JEliati Hist. 

 Ainm., Uh. ii. co/jp. 42. 



