Falcons.] 



MUSEUM OF ANIMATED NATURE. 



267 



flown at rooks it has been known to strike down 

 several in succession before alighting to prey on 

 one ; and he adds, " an eye-witness to the fact as- 

 sures me that he once saw a falcon strike down 

 five partridges out of a covey one after the other : 

 but such occurrences are rare." Mr. Selby, in his 

 ' British Ornithology,' gives a similar instance of 

 daring to that related by Mr. Thompson, from the 

 account of Mr. Sinclair. " In exercising my dogs 

 upon the moors previous to the commencement of 

 the shooting season, I observed a large bird of the 

 hawk genus hovering at a distance, which upon 

 approaching I knew to be a peregrine falcon. Its 

 attention was now drawn towards the dogs, and it 

 accompanied them while they beat the surrounding 

 ground. Upon their having found and sprung a 

 brood of grouse, the falcon immediately gave chase 

 and struck a young bird before they had proceeded 

 far upon the wing. My shouts and rapid advance 

 prevented it from securing its prey. The issue of 

 this attempt, however, did not deter the falcon, 

 frorh watching our subsequent movements ; and an- 

 other opportunity soon offering, it again gave chase 

 and struck down two birds by two rapidly repeated 

 blows, one of which it secured and bore off in 

 triumph." The flight of this falcon when pursuing 

 its quarry is astonishingly rapid. Montagu has 

 reckoned it at one hundred and fifty miles an hour ; 

 and Colonel Thornton, an expert falconer, estimated 

 the flight of one in pursuit of a snipe to have been 

 nine miles in eleven minutes, without including the 

 frequent turnings. Audubon, in his ' Birds of Ame- 

 rica,' states that he has seen this falcon come at the 

 report of a gun, and carry off a teal not thirty steps 

 distant from the sportsman who had killed it, " with 

 a daring assurance as surprising as unexpected.'" 



This singular aptitude in the wild bird to join 

 men and dogs in their pursuit of game, availing 

 itself of their assistance, shows at once the little 

 trouble, comparatively speaking, requisite for re- 

 claiming and training it. A knowledge of the 

 service rendered by dogs and men in putting up 

 game, thereby giving it the opportunity of striking 

 it, is intuitive. In disposition it is confident and 

 docile ; and with patience, kind treatment, and 

 proper management, its training is soon effected. 



The peregrine falcon breeds on the ledges of pre- 

 cipitous rocks, laying four eggs, of a reddish-brown 

 colour, with darker blotches and variegations. 



With respect to the distribution of this species in 

 America, Dr. Richardson, who describes an old male 

 from Melville Peninsula, lat. 68^ N., says (' Fauna 

 Boreali- Americana'), " The peregrine being a rare 

 bird in the wooded districts of the fur countries 

 where the trading-posts are established, I did not 

 procure a specimen on the late expeditions ; but I 

 have frequently seen it whilst on the march across 

 the Barren Grounds. Of the two specimens figured 

 by Edwards, one was from Hudson's Bay and the 

 other was caught off the entrance of Hudson's 

 Straits. Captain Parry likewise brought home 

 several male and female specimens from Mel- 

 ville Peninsula, some of which are preserved in 

 the British Museum. It is a summer visiter of the 

 northern parts of America, and frequents the coasts 

 of the Hudson's Bay and the Arctic Sea, with the 

 Barren Grounds, but is very seldom seen in the in- 

 terior. It preys habitually on the long-tailed ducks 

 (Anas glacialis), which breed in great numbers in 

 the arctic regions, arriving in June and departing 

 in September. Captain Parry observed it, in his 

 second voyage, following flocks of the snow-bunting 

 on the coast of Greenland, near Cape Farewell. It 

 frequents the shores of New .lersey and Pennsyl- 

 vania in the winter, and is celebrated there for the 

 havoc it makes among the water-fowl. Mr. Ord 

 states that the ducks which are struck by it are 

 lacerated from the neck to the rump ; it gives the 

 blow in passing, and returns to pick up its bird." 

 According to Captain King, it is found at the Straits 

 of Magalhaens. 



Like all the Falconidae, this bird undergoes suc- 

 cessive variations of colouring before attaining its 

 permanent livery. When young, the plumage on 

 the back inclines to rufous, the middle of each fea- 

 ther only having a tint of deep bluish ash, and the 

 under parts being white, with brown longitudinal 

 dashes. The colouring of the adult is as follows : — 

 Head and back of the neck blackish lead colour, 

 which colour, as it extends over the back, assumes 

 a more ashy tinge ; below the eye is a large trian- 

 gular mark of dark lead colour, pointing down- 

 wards, and commonly called the moustache — this 

 mark is a common feature in many others of the 

 genus. The throat and breast are white, with a 

 few slender dashes of brown ; the under parts are 

 dirty white, with fine transverse bars of brown. 

 The tail is alternately barred with bluish grey and 

 black. Cere, eyelids, and tarsi yellow ; iris dark 

 hazel brown ; claws black. 



Fig. 1238 represents a peregrine falcon about to 

 strike a partridge ; Fig. 1239, " a hawk on fist," 

 with hood and bells; Figs. 1240, 1241, 1242, 1243, 



1244, and 1245, are illustrative of the not yet ex- 

 ploded practice of Falconry ; an art which in former 

 days engaged the most earnest attention, and is 

 still a common amusement among the Turks, in 

 some parts of Asia Minor, among the Persians, Cir- 

 cassians, and the wandering hordes of Turkomans 

 and Tartars. Hawking appears to have been in- 

 troduced into England fiom the North of Europe 

 during the fourth century. Our Saxon ancestors 

 became passionately fond of the sport, but do not 

 appear to have made great progress in the art of 

 training the birds. In the eighth century, one of 

 the kings of that race caused a letter to be written 

 to Winifred, Archbishop of Mons, begging the dig- 

 nitary to send him some falcons that had been well 

 trained to kill cranes. The month of October was 

 more particularly devoted to that sport by the 

 Saxons. We are indebted to our fierce invaders 

 the Danes for many improvements in Falconry. 

 Denmark and still more Norway were always cele- 

 brated for their breeds of hawks, and the natives of 

 these countries had attained an extraordinary de- 

 gree of skill in the art of training them. In the 

 eleventh century, when Canute, King of Denmark 

 and Norway, ascended the English throne, the sport 

 became more prevalent. We are not aware of what 

 restrictions were imposed under the Saxon or Danish 

 monarchs, but after the conquest by William of 

 Normandy none but persons of the highest rank 

 were allowed to keep hawks. Cruel laws with re- 

 spect to fieid-sports were framed and rigorously 

 executed by the first princes of our Norman dynasty. 

 According to the liberal views of those times, the 

 people were held utterly unworthy of partaking 

 anything except the air of heaven in common with 

 their noble oppressors. The life of a serf was of less 

 value in the eyes of a Norman baron than that of 

 a buck, a hound, or a hawk : and in those days the 

 mass of what we now call the people were serfs and 

 slaves. As to the keeping of falcons, the great ex- 

 pense attending it put it entirely out of the power 

 of the commonalty, but the prohibitive Norman 

 law was probably meant at first to extend to such 

 of the Saxon landholders as were rich and remained 

 free, but had no rank or nobility according to the 

 conqueror's estimation. In the days of John, how- 

 ever, every freeman was most liberally permitted to 

 have eyries of hawks, falcons, eagles, and herons 

 in his own iroods. In the year 1481 was printed 

 the ' Book of St. Albans,' by Juliana Berners, sister 

 of Lord Berners and prioress of the nunnery of 

 Sopewell. It consisted of two tracts, one on hawk- 

 ing, the other on heraldry. The noble dame ob- 

 tained from her giatelul contemporaries the praise 

 of being " a second Minerva in her studies, and 

 another Diana in her diversions." Her subject was 

 well chos^en ; hawking was then the standing pas- 

 time of the noble, and the lady abbess treated it in 

 the manner the most likely to please. The book 

 became to falconers what Hoyle's has since become 

 to whist-players ; but the Dame Juliana's had more- 

 over the merit of paying proper homage to the 

 jealous distinctions between man and man, as then 

 established. According to the ' Book of St. Albans' 

 there was a nice adaptation of the different kinds of 

 falcons to ditt'erent ranks. Thus, such species of 

 hawks were for kings, and could not be used by any 

 person of inferior dignity ; — such for princes of the 

 blood, such others for the duke and great lord, and 

 so on, down to the knave or servant. In all, there 

 were fifteen grades ; but whether this number was 

 so small owing to the species of birds, or because 

 it included all the factitious divisions of society 

 then recognised, we cannot well determine. We 

 have too much respect for the patience of our 

 readers to follow the dame through all her direc- 

 tions, to which additions have been made in the 

 fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. We would 

 rather accompany the trained hawks into the field. 

 Strut, in his industrious work on the ' Sports and 

 Pastimes of the English,' gives one or two engrav- 

 ings, from very old pictures, representing ladies 

 followed by dogs, and running on foot, with their 

 hawks on their fists, to cast them off at game. In- 

 deed, John of Salisbury, who wrote in the thirteenth 

 century, says that the women even excelled the 

 men in the knowledge and practice of falconry, 

 whence he ungallantly takes occasion to call the 

 sport itself frivolous and effeminate. Taken alto- 

 gether, however, a hunting party of this kind, com- 

 posed of knights and dames, mounted on their 

 piaffing manege horses, 



" Ryding on hawkini; by the river. 

 With ffrey gosliawk in hand,'* * 



and with their train of falconers, in appropriate cos- 

 tume, and their well-broken dogs, and the silver 

 music of the bells, mingled with a variety of other 

 sounds, must have been a pleasant enough scene to 

 behold, or to form part of. 



For most species of game, it appears that spaniels, 

 cockers, or other dogs were required to rouse the 

 birds to wing. When at a proper elevation, the 



hawk, being freed from his head-gear, was cast off 

 from the sportsman's fist, with a loud whoop to 

 encourage her. But here great science was re- 

 quired ; and it was frequently made matter of 

 anxious and breathless debate as to whether the far 

 jettee or the jettee serre should be adopted. These 

 terms, like many more employed in those days in 

 hawking and hunting, were derived from the French. 

 Jeter signifies to throw or cast off. The far jettee 

 meant to cast off the hawk at a distance from the 

 quarry it was to pursue ; and the jettee serre to fly 

 it as near to the bird, or as soon after the destined 

 prey had taken wing, as possible. But many con- 

 siderations were involved in these decisions: — the 

 species of the quarry, the peculiar properties of 

 the hawk on hand at the time, — the nature of the 

 country, — the force and direction, of the wind, and 

 numerous other circumstances, had to be duly 

 pondered. 



When the hawk was cast off, it flew in the di- 

 rection of the game, and endeavoured to surmount 

 it, or get above it, in its flight. To obtain this 

 advantage, when herons and other birds strong on 

 the wing were pursued, the hawk was obliged to 

 have recourse to scaling, or ascending the air by 

 performing a succession of small circles, each going 

 higher and higher, like the steps of a winding cork- 

 screw staircase. In whatever way it was performed 

 this was called " the mount." At times, both the 

 pursuer and pursued would fly so high as almost 

 to be lost in the clouds. When the hawk reached 

 a proper elevation above the game, she shot down 

 upon it with all her force and velocity, and this 

 descent was technically called " the stoop," or " the 

 swoop." John Shaw, Master of Arts, of Cambridge, 

 who published a strange book called ' Speculum 

 Mundi ' (The World's Looking-glass), in that learned 

 city, in 163.5, informs us that llie heron, or hernsaw, 

 " is a large Ibwie that liveth about waters," and that 

 hath a marvellous hatred to the hawk, which hatred 

 is duly returned. "When Ihey fight above in the 

 air, they labour both especially for this one thing, 

 that one may ascend and be above the other. Now 

 if the hawk getteth the upper place, he overthroweth 

 and vanquisheth the heron with a marvellous earn- 

 est flight." It should seem, however, that this was 

 not always the case, and that the heron sometimes 

 received the hawk on its long sharp bill, and so 

 transfixed and killed her. When the hawk closed 

 or grappled with her prey (which was called bind- 

 ing in falconry), they generally tumbled down 

 from the sky together, and the object of the sports- 

 man was, either by running on foot or galloping his 

 horse, to get to the spot as soon as they should 

 touch the earth, in order to assist the hawk in her 

 struKgle with her prey. 



We believe all birds of the Falcon genus nalu 

 rally strike their prey with their talons, or claws; 

 but in one of our engravings we see a hawk striking 

 and binding a wild duck with her beak. So correct 

 a delineator as Reidiiiger was not likely to make a 

 mistake ; and indeed we see it mentioned in one of 

 the books we have consulted, that a hawk, well re- 

 claimed and enlured, would kill the smaller game 

 with her beak, or the strong percussion of her breast- 

 bone, and then hold or bind it with her beak 

 (Fig. 1245). 



The Falcons, it should be observed, were taken into 

 the field with hoods over their eyes, and with little 

 bells on their legs ; and the sportsman carried a lure, 

 to which the bird had been taught to fly by being 

 fed regularly upon or near it, with fresh-killed 

 meat. " When the hawk," says Master Gervase 

 (1615), is " passingly reclaimed, you must bring her 

 to lure by easy degrees ; first by dainties, making her 

 jump upon your fist, then to fall upon the lure, when 

 held out to it, and then to come at the sound of 

 your voice ; and to delight her the more with the 

 lure, have it ever garnished, on both sides, with warm 

 and bloody meat." 



These lures seem to have been of various sorts. 

 In very old times, a " taburstycke," which was 

 merely a piece of wood rounded and besmeared 

 with blood, was in use ; bat with the progress of 

 civilization, a better lure, called a "hawker," was 

 introduced. The hawker was a staff about twenty- 

 two inches long, cased at the upper part with iron, 

 having a bell " rather of sullen tone than musical," 

 and the figure of a bird, with outstretched wings, 

 carved at the top. When this instrument was agi- 

 tated, a reclaimed hawk would descend to it from 

 the clouds; but we believe, for a bird of the highest 

 training, nothing more was required than to shake 

 the tassellcd hood we see in the hand of the sports- 

 man. Fig. 1243, and to use the voice. 



" Oh ! for a falconer's voice, to lure this tassel gentle back again" 



is put by Shakspere into the mouth of Juliet, and 

 the same delineator of nature makes Hamlet ex- 

 claim, by way of answer to Horatio, in the language 

 of the falconer calling in his hawk, " Illo, ho, ho, 

 boy! come, bird, come I" It may interest some 

 to hear, that in the twenty-seventti year ot 



2 M 2 



