CAME BIRDS. 97 



VIII. , pursuing his hawk, on foot at Hitchen, in Hertfordshire, 

 attempted, with the assistance of his pole, to jump over a ditch, 

 that was half full of muddy water ; the pole broke, and the king 

 fell with his head into the mud, where he would have been stifled, 

 had not a footman, who was near him, leaped into the ditch, and 

 released his Majesty from his perilous situation. 



Hentzner, who wrote his Itinerary, A.D. 1598, assures us that 

 hawking was the general sport of the English nobility. At the 

 commencement of the seventeenth century, it seems to have been 

 in the zenith of its glory. It was considered the head of rural 

 amusements, and hawks the ensigns of nobility. Ladies of dis- 

 tinction were represented with hawks on their hands; a gentleman 

 was known by his hawk, his horse, and his greyhound. 



Sir John Sebright, of whom I have had so often to speak, has 

 recently published a work on hawking, which details the best 

 method of taking, rearing, and training the hunting hawks, with 

 all the terms of falconry, including feeding, tiring, &c. 



THE COMMON HERON was the favourite quarry of the falconer, 

 and protected by laws enacted for its preservation, it being a fine 

 of ten shillings for taking the young out of the nest, and six shil- 

 lings and eightpence without his own grounds, killing a heron, 

 except by hawking or by the long bow ; while in subsequent 

 enactments, the latter penalty was increased to twenty shillings 

 or three months' imprisonment. 



The heron's beak is six inches long, straight, compressed, and 

 sharp, with a delicate cere at the base, and the upper mandible 

 solcated, of a yellowish, horn colour, hides yellow, lores naked, 

 legs long, naked, high above the tarsel joint : wings ample and 

 rounded ; middle claw pectinated. The common heron is spread 

 over the greater part of the world, inhabiting Asia and Africa, as 

 well as Europe. In our island, and in temperate climes, the 

 heron is stationary, but is migratory in colder latitudes. Except 

 during the breeding season, this fine bird is solitary, hunting 

 rivers, sheets of water, and preserves of fish, where it often com- 

 mits considerable damage. It is early in the morning, with the 

 gray of the dawn, after sunset in the evening, and especially 

 during moonlight, that the heron takes his prey, excepting, 

 indeed, when the calls of his nestlings demand his continual 

 exertions. He may then be seen in lonely and secluded nooks, 

 standing in the water, with glistening eye, and head drawn back, 

 ready for the fatal stroke. Patiently does he maintain his fixed 

 attitude ; presently a fish passes ; suddenly as lightning, and 

 with unerring precision, arrow-like, he launches his beak, and up 



