200 REMINISCENCES OF A SPOETSMAN. 



pay ten punds of vulau to the king, and dictay to be 

 taken be the justice clerkis thairupon. And quhair it 

 beis understandin that for the pleasure of the king's 

 hienes ony persounnis keipes the said nestis, and suffers 

 no persounnis to destroy them, they sail have thankes 

 and favouris of our soverane Lord as effairis, and ane 

 vulan to be guvin thairfor." Distances were sometimes 

 calculated by the flight of an arrow, or that of a hawk. 



Kenneth III. of Scotland, to reward signal services 

 in the battle field performed by a peasant and his two 

 sons gave them so much land on the river Tay as a 

 falcon from a man's hand flew over till it settled. 

 The tract, which was six miles in length, and was after- 

 wards called Errol, forms the patrimonial estate of 

 the Earl of Errol, whose coat of arms, as directed by 

 Kenneth, consists of three escutcheons, gules, to inti- 

 mate that this trio had been three shields of Scotland, 

 with a falcon as a crest and two ploughmen as sup- 

 porters. An interesting proof of the popularity of fal- 

 conry in this country is related in an anecdote of Sir 

 Ealph Sadler, that while he had the unfortunate Mary 

 Queen of Scots under his care, he indulged his royal 

 prisoner in the gratification of hawking the river. 

 The birds used in Scotland in the end of the thirteenth 

 century were almost exclusively the falcon and tercel 

 gentle, a bird that breeds in the islands and Highlands 

 of Scotland, viz. the island of Arran and in the Craig 

 of Ailsa.* Falconry was a favourite sport in the south- 



* A very distingiiislied officer, a friend of mine, -who sei-ved in all the 

 campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in Spain and Portugal, and was 

 on the staff at the battle of AVaterloo, was so kind as to give me the 

 information respecting hawking in Ayrshire, and the interesting ac- 

 count of the Craig of Ailsa, from which the Marciuis of Ailsa takes his 

 title. 



