II A WKING. 



poles are covered with coarse cloth over a stuffing of straw, 

 and lines are strung from one side to the other, pretty close, 

 that they may have something to catch hold of in case of 

 the ship's rolling. The catchers receive a written testimony of 

 their respective good qualities, by virtue of which they are 

 paid, by the king's receiver-general, about three pounds for the 

 best, which are white ; about two pounds for the second best, 

 and from eight to ten shillings for the remainder ; latterly, the 

 prices have been raised, but in former days, when they received 

 rather more, and money was not so plentiful, this price may 

 be considered as very great. But this price is nothing in com- 

 parison with the sums quoted by historians, as given about 

 two hundred years ago in England, when a Goshawk, a bird 

 far inferior to these Iceland Hawks, was sold for one hundred 

 marks, or nearly seventy pounds sterling. It is further said, 

 that a certain Sir Thomas Monson, about that period, gave no 

 less than a thousand pounds for a cast of Hawks, consisting 

 of two birds. 



In the Orkney Islands, a little to the north of Scotland, 

 where excellent Hawks are bred, there was an Act of Parlia- 

 ment claiming them " to be reserved to his Majesty, with the 

 falconer's salaries, according to ancient custom ; " and in some 

 parts there is still an old custom observed of claiming a hen 

 from each house, or from a certain number of houses in each 

 parish, as due to the royal falconers. They were said to have 

 been originally taken as food for the King's Hawks.* 



No amusement seems to have been followed with so much 

 eagerness as hawking in almost every country in Europe ; and 

 from the earliest times, even before William the Conqueror's 

 days, it was the favourite pursuit of the royal families and 

 nobility of England. The training and flying of Hawks 

 formed part of the education of every young man of rank. 

 King Alfred is said to have written a treatise upon the sub- 

 ject ; and even ladies followed it as eagerly as the gentlemen. 

 The amusement was occasionally followed on foot, but gene- 

 rally, particularly on downs and in open countries, it was 

 * Barry's Orkney. 



