-papular JBtrttonarii of ^mmntcft $<itur?. 227 



them all would be more monotonous than 

 interesting. 



Among the European nations the French 

 and Germans seem to have been the first to 

 j encourage the practice of falconry ; and the 

 ! technical terms used by the English are evi- 

 | dently all borrowed or derived from the 

 j French. " In our own country," says Mr. 

 I Pennant, " I cannot trace the certainty of 

 I falconry till the reign of King Ethelbert the 

 j Saxon monarch, in the year 700, when he 

 wrote to Germany for a brace of Falcons 

 which would fly at cranes and bring them to 

 the ground, as there were very few such in 

 Kent. It seems highly probable that fal- 

 conry had its rise in Scythia, and passed 

 from thence to the northern parts of Europe. 

 Tartary is even at present celebrated for its 

 fine breed of Falcons ; and the sport is in 

 such general esteem that, according to Olea- 

 rius, there was no hut but what had its Eagle 

 or Falcon. The boundless plains of that 

 country are as finely adapted to the diver- 

 sion as the wooded or mountainous nature 

 of most part of Europe is ill calculated for 

 that rapid amusement." In England fal- 

 conry seems to have continued in full glory 

 till about the time of Cromwell, after which 

 it appears to have gradually declined. With 

 1 what ardour it was pursued in the reign of 

 James I. may be gathered from the anecdote 

 related by Mr. Pennant, who says that Sir 

 James Monson gave no less a sum than a 

 thousand pounds for a cast of Hawks. [See 

 EAGLE, HAWK, &c.] 



FALLOW DEER. (Cervus dama.) This 

 animal, so graceful an ornament of our 



I parks, in its general form greatly resembles 

 the Stag, having the same elegance of aspect 



j with a more gentle disposition. It is, how- 

 ever, considerably smaller, being only about 



FALLOW D 



. (OERVUS DAMA.) 



three feet, or rather less, to the top of the 

 shoulder. It is generally of a brownish bay 

 colour, more or less beautifully spotted ; 

 and it has a longer tail. The horns of the 

 1 allow Deer are broad and palmated at 



their extremities, pointing a little forward, 

 and branched on their hinder sides ; they 

 have two sharp and slender brow-antlers, 

 and, above them, two small slender branches; 

 whereas every branch of a Stag's horn is 

 shaped like the stem that supports it : the 

 form of the horns is, in fact, the chief mark 

 of distinction between the two species. 



The manners of the Fallow Deer resemble 

 those of the Stag, but it is less delicate in the 

 choice of its food, and browses much closer. 

 It arrives at full growth and perfection in 

 about three years, and is said to live about 

 twenty. The male is called a buck. In the 

 first year he is &fawn ; in his second, a pricket ; 

 in his third, &sorel; in his fourth, a sore; 

 in his fifth, a buck of the first head; and in 

 his sixth, a great buck. The female, or doe, 

 in her first year is called a, fawn; and in her 

 second, a tc y. The process of acquiring and 

 shedding the horns is in every respect simi- 

 lar to that which takes place in the stag ; 

 but the form of them, as we have before 

 described, is very different, and the furrows, 

 &c. are less distinctly marked. Although 

 the males are much less furious in the rut- 

 ting-season than the Stag, they frequently 

 fight desperately for the possession of the 

 females ; and it is not till after repeated 

 conflicts that one buck obtains the sove- 

 reignty of the whole. It also often happens 

 that a herd of Fallow- Deer will divide into 

 two parties, and engage each other with 

 great ardour and obstinacy, as if ambitious 

 of securing some favourite spot of pasturage, 

 and of driving the vanquished party into 

 the coarser and more sterile parts. 



When closely pursued by the hunters, the 

 buck makes towards some strong hold or 

 thicket with which he is acquainted, cither 

 in the more shady parts of a wood, or the 

 steep of some mountain ; nor does he fly far 

 before the hounds, nor cross and double like 

 the stag : he will take the water, it is true, 

 when hard run ; but in strength, cunning, 

 and courage, he is much inferior to the stag, 

 and, consequently, he affords neither so long 

 nor so various a chace. In England there 

 are two kinds of Fallow Deer : the beautiful 

 dappled kind, supposed to have been brought 

 from the South of Europe, or the Western 

 parts of Asia ; and the very deep brown 

 variety, which were brought from Norway 

 by James I., who, while there, noticed that 

 they could endure the cold of that severe 

 climate, and subsist throughout the winter 

 without fodder. Nothing can exceed, in 

 richness and delicacy, the venison of the 

 Fallow Deer. The skins of both the Buck 

 and the Doe are unrivalled for durability 

 and softness ; and the horns, like those of the 

 stag, are manufactured into knife handles, 

 &c. ; while from the refuse, ammonia (po- 

 pularly known as hartshorn) is extracted. 



FANFOOT [MOTHS]. A name given by 

 collectors to Moths of the genus Polypogon. 



F ANT AIL. (RJu'jmlura.) A genus of I 

 Birds belonging to the family Mitscicapiilte, \ 

 and found in Australia. There are more \ 

 than one species, but we restrict ourselves ! 

 here to the 



