THE HAWK TRIBE. 135 



little use to them in flying, they enable them to use 

 their long legs with a speed equal to that of a grey- 

 hound, and afford excellent sport when pursued by 

 Hawks; and Bustard-coursing is, therefore, a favourite 

 amusement with persons of rank in that country. Hawk- 

 ing, however, to any extent, is at the present day 

 nothing, compared with what it was a few hundred 

 years ago in England, and many parts of Europe, when 

 it was followed with an eagerness and a degree of ex- 

 pense far beyond the cost of fox-hunting, racing, or any 

 of the field sports of modern times. Of the value and 

 importance attached to birds of the right breed (for all 

 Hawks were far from being equally good,) we may form 

 some idea from the attention paid by the king of Den- 

 mark, in procuring and preserving certain Falcons which 

 were in the highest estimation, from his island of Ice- 

 land, and were then, and still are, known by the name 

 of the Iceland Falcon {Falco icelandicus, Falco gyrfcdco). 

 Next to the Eagle, it was reputed the most formidable 

 and active, as well as most prompt and intrepid of our 

 birds of prey. 



In the winter whole flights of these birds come over 

 from Greenland and the Arctic regions, where, they pro- 

 bably breed and pass the summer, as Captain Sir l)dward 

 Parry saw them frequently in his last voyage. These 

 Icelandic Falcons were always considered the best for 

 sport, lasting ten or twelve years; whereas, those from 

 Norway, not above two or three years; they are also 

 superior in size, and gifted with extraordinary qualities. 

 So much were they indeed prized, that an ancient Danish 

 law inflicted the punishment of death on any person 

 found guilty of destroying them; and those engaged in 

 taking them were bound under heavy penalties, to deliver 

 them to no other person whatever but the king's own 

 falconer, and even so late as 1758, the spirit of the law 

 was not much changed, judging from the following 

 account of a writer on Icelandic history. He tells us 

 that the king of Denmark sends every year a falconer, 



