THE PEREGRINE FALCON. 21 



Ethelstan made North Wales furnish him not only 

 with as many dogs as he chose, " whose scent-pursuing 

 noses might explore the haunts and coverts of the deer," 

 but " birds who knew how to hunt others along the 

 sky." The finest and largest falcons, however, came 

 from Norway. Hawking seems to have been pursued 

 among the Saxons almost as it was in later times : many 

 of their kings, like Alfred, were expert falconers. But 

 it was the Normans who attached to falconry the great- 

 est importance, and gave almost as minute and careful 

 instructions for training and preserving the hawk, as for 

 tending and instructing the heir of the family. An ex- 

 pensive diet was considered necessary. All treatises on 

 the subject require for this bird the purest waier and the 

 freshest raw meat — two articles not always to be found 

 in a baron's castle, where salted sheep were the chief 

 winter provisions, and where muddy ale and beer were 

 more plentiful than spring-water. 



In the middle ages the price of a good falcon was 

 very high. In the early part of the reign of Edward in. 

 the king of Scotland sent him a falcon gentil, which he 

 graciously received, and gave the falconer who brought 

 it forty shillings, a sum equal to forty or fifty pounds in 

 the present day. At a much later period the prices of 

 these favourite birds appear to have been enormous. 



