THE FALCON KIND. 101 



hawk, fly with screams at his most distant ap- 

 pearance. Long before I could see the falcon, 

 I have seen them, with the utmost signs of ter- 

 ror, endeavouring to avoid him ; and, like the 

 peasants of a country before a victorious army, 

 every one of them attempting to shift for himself. 

 Even the young falcons, though their spirits be 

 depressed by captivity, will, when brought out 

 into the field, venture to fly at barnacles and 

 wild geese, till being soundly brushed and beaten 

 by those strong birds, they learn their error, and 

 desist from meddling with such unwieldy game 

 for the future. 



To train up the hawk to this kind of obe- 

 dience, so as to hunt for his master, and bring 

 him the game he shall kill, requires no small de- 

 gree of skill and assiduity. Numberless treatises 

 have been written upon this subject, which are 

 now, with the sport itself, almost utterly forgotten : 

 indeed, except to a few, they seem utterly unintel- 

 ligible ; for the falconers had a language peculiar 

 to themselves, in which they conversed and wrote, 

 and took a kind of professional pride in using no 

 other. A modern reader, I suppose, would be 

 little edified by one of the instructions, for in- 

 stance, which we find in Willoughby, when he bids 

 us draw our falcon out of the mew twenty days be- 

 fore we enseam her. If she truss and carry, the re- 

 medy is, cosse her talons, herpowse, and petty single. 



But, as it certainly makes a part of natural 

 history to show how much the nature of birds can 

 be wrought upon by harsh or kind treatment, 

 I will just take leave to give a short account of 



