THE LITEKATUEE OF FALCONRY. 21.3 



" Gentlemen's Eecreation." In the article on falconry 

 may be ol)tained much useful information. In Blaine's 

 " Encyclopedia of Rural Sports" this subject is most ably 

 treated, and for much of the information I have acquired 

 on hawking I am indebted to this work ; for, in the 

 present time, very few men are able to write on hawking 

 from practical experience ; but now that I am become 

 acquainted with the theory of this field sport, I regret 

 much that in my younger days I had no opportunity of 

 seeing a peregrine flown at a heron or a woodcoc\.* A 

 curious treatise on falconry was that attributed to the 

 Lady Juliana Berners, daughter of Richard Berners, of 

 Berners Roding, and sister of Lord Berners, born at 

 Rodin in Essex about the beginning of the 14th cen- 

 tury. She has been celebrated by various authors as 

 very learned ; and doubtless had the best education that 

 could be obtained at that age, as she was appointed 

 Prioress of Sopewell Nunnery, near St, Albans, about 

 1460, or rather earlier. She was very beautiful, and 

 fond of masculine exercises, such as hunting, hawking, 



* It is stated, in " Falconrj' in the British Isles," that hawkinp: for 

 landrails ceased only some forty years since, by the introduction of a 

 new system of agriciiltitre into the county of Dorset, -which has banished 

 the landrails previously abounding there. About fiftj'-four years 

 ago, -when I wa.s in the Greys, I was quartered in almost every to-mi in 

 Dorsetshire, and hunted and shot in most parts of the coimty, but I 

 never recollect hearing or seeing any hawking establishment, or sparrow- 

 hawks kept to be flown at the hmdrail, except that I once saw, as I 

 have elsewhere stated, when quartered at Bridport, a blacksmith go by 

 with a sparrow-hawk on his fist, and a spaniel, to fly his hawk at land- 

 rails, and that he foxmd them chiefly in the fields of flax, which at that 

 time was much cultivated in that neighbourhood ; and as I have already 

 stated, I consider Dorsetshire, taken altogether, one of the best counties 

 for field sports, if it has not imdergone a considerable change since tlie 

 beginning of the present century. 



