BIRDS TRAINED TO HUNT 129 



punishable with death. Elizabeth was more lenient ; 

 any one then convicted of this form of stealing was 

 merely fined and imprisoned for a period not to 

 exceed seven years! The prison term, under 

 James I, however, was reduced to one month and 

 the fine was set at forty shillings. Similar strin- 

 gent laws were in effect all over Europe, and re- 

 mained so until late in the seventeenth century. 

 Then, they gradually relaxed. By the opening of 

 the nineteenth century the theft of a hawk in Eng- 

 land had been placed in the same category as the 

 stealing of a fowl and was dealt with in the same 

 manner. 



While the practice of falconry as a fine art has 

 virtually disappeared from Europe at the present 

 time, it still has great popularity in other parts 

 of the world removed from the glamour of modern 

 civilization. Although unknown to the American 

 aborigines, it is enthusiastically carried on in 

 parts of the Old World wherever there exist 

 nomadic tribes. As with the ancients, it is not 

 merely a sport with these people, but a pleasant 

 method of obtaining food. By means of 

 desert falcons the Arabs procure gazelles and 

 hares for the larder, an example which is fol- 

 lowed by the inhabitants of Barbary and Morocco. 

 The roving nomads of Siberia seldom travel with- 

 out their hawks. In Turkestan falconry is re- 

 garded as the most popular sport of all. The 



