HAWKING. 125 



crowds. Few people are, indeed, aware of the numbers of 

 Hawks that existed in comparatively recent times in London. 

 On and about the dome of St. Paul's they were often to be 

 seen ; and a pair, for several seasons, built their nest and reared 

 their brood in perfect safety between the golden dragon's wings, 

 which formed the weathercock of Bow Church, in Cheapside. 

 They might be easily distinguished, by the thousands who 

 walked below, flying in and out, or circling round the summit 

 of the spire, notwithstanding the constant motion and creaking 

 noise of the weathercock, as it turned round at every change 

 of wind. 



In consequence of the disappearance of wastes and commons 

 by enclosures and hedges, which rendered it no easy matter 

 to follow the amusement without danger and delay, and also 

 ever since the introduction of guns, hawking has gradually 

 declined, and may be now said to be nearly at an end; 

 though within late years, some attempts have been made to 

 revive it. 



The following account is from an eye-witness of a day's 

 hawking, which occurred in June 1825, in Norfolk, in the 

 flat fen-country near a heronry. The party assembled in the 

 afternoon, the wind blowing towards the heronry. There 

 were four couple of Hawks, all females, of the breed known 

 by the name of the Peregrine Falcon, one of the most 

 esteemed of the "British Hawks in the ancient days of falconry. 

 They were carried by a man to the ground, upon an oblong 

 kind of frame padded with leather, on which the birds 

 perched, and to which they were fastened by a thong of 

 leather. Each bird had a small bell on one leg, and a leather 

 hood, with an oblong piece of scarlet cloth stitched into it 

 over each eye ; on the top of this hood was a small plume of 

 various-coloured feathers. The man walked in the centre of 

 the frame, with a strap from each side, over each shoulder ; 

 and when he arrived at the spot fixed upon for the sport, 

 lie set down the frame upon its legs, and took off all the 

 Falcons and tethered them to the ground in a convenient 

 shady place. 



