128 HAWKING. 



They might be easily distinguished by the thousands who 

 walked below, flying in and out, or circling round the sum- 

 mit of the spire, notwithstanding the constant motion and 

 creaking noise of the weather-cock, as it turned round at 

 every change of wind. 



In consequence of the disappearance of wastes and com- 

 mons, by enclosures and hedges, which rendered it no easy 

 matter to follow the amusement without danger and delay, 

 and also, ever since the introduction of guns, hawking has 

 gradually declined, and may be now said to be nearly at an 

 end ; though within late years, some attempts have been 

 made to revive it. 



The following account is from an eye-witness of a day's 

 hawking, which occurred in June, 1825, in Norfolk, in the 

 flat fen-country, near a heronry. The party assembled in 

 the afternoon, the wind blowing towards the heronry. 

 There were four couple of Hawks, all females, of the breed 

 known by the name of the Peregrine Falcon, one of the 

 most esteemed of the British Hawks in the ancient days 

 of falconry. They were carried by a man to the ground, 

 upon an oblong kind of frame, padded with leather, on 

 which the birds perched, and to which they were fastened 

 by a thong of leather. Each bird had a small bell on one 

 leg, and a leather hood, with an oblong piece of scarlet 

 cloth stitched into it over each eye ; on the top of this hood 

 was a small plume of various -coloured feathers. The man 

 walked in the centre of the frame, with a strap from each 

 side, over each shoulder ; and when he arrived at the spot 

 fixed upon for the sport, he set down the frame upon its 

 legs, and took off all the Falcons and tethered them to the 

 ground in a convenient shady place. 



There were four foreigners, probably from Falconsward, 

 a village in North Brabant, much famed for its Falcons, 

 under whose particular care the birds were placed, each 

 having a bag, somewhat like a woman's pocket, tied to his 

 waist, containing a live Pigeon, called a lure, to which was 

 fastened a long string. 



After waiting awhile, some Herons passed, but at too 



