182- EEMIXISCEXCES OF A SPOKTSMAN. 



This oath is aftei'wards administered to all the under 

 falconers and other officers of the royal mews. Then 

 he who is appointed body physician to the hawk comes 

 forward, and having undergone an examination of all 

 the diseases and cures of hawks, he is also sworn in his 

 place. The ceremony being finished, the spectators are 

 dismissed by the sound of trumpets. 



This potentate flies these noble birds in vast forests 

 well stocked with deer, which they attack with incre- 

 dible impetuosity as soon as they descry their prey from 

 the heights of air. They stoop on it with the rapidity 

 of lightning, and taking their stations between its horns, 

 aim directly at its eyes. The creature finding itself 

 thus assailed, runs, and bounds, and tosses its head in 

 order to shake off its enemy ; but the well trounced 

 falcon keeps her hold amidst all these agitations. At 

 last she not only tears out the eyes but penetrates even 

 to the brain, and it is the amusement (and a horridly 

 cruel one) of the spectators to mark the varying turns 

 of the struggle between the deer and the hawk till the 

 former is killed. Nothing can exceed the care and assi- 

 duity wherewith the falconers and physicians look after 

 the royal hawks ; for the penalty of their oath, what- 

 ever may be their fate in the next world, is inflicted 

 with the utmost severity in the present. If it appear 

 that the loss or death of any of these birds is occa- 

 sioned by their negligence, the offender is sewed up in 

 deer skins, with horns fixed on his head, and thus 

 turned out to the rage of the falcons. These, mistaking 

 the disguised criminal for a deer, fly at him with their 

 usual fierceness, pull out his eyes, and put him to the 

 most excruciating death. The dread of this horrible 

 fate renders the officers of the royal mews remarkably 



