CHAPTER LXV. 



WILD-FOWLING IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



" From the frozen North, where Winter's hand, 

 With sway despotic and untam'd, locks up 

 The shrinking world ; o'er the wide ocean borne 

 On vig'rous wing, pour forth the feather'd tribes 

 Diverse and strange." 



Fowling ; a Poem. Book iv. 



THE present treatise has, thus far, been devoted to the subject of 

 wild-fowling as it is practised in our own country ; the author will 

 now discourse of the various stratagems employed in this art by the 

 people of foreign nations. 



Wild-fowl have always been more abundant in some foreign 

 countries than in England ; and it is natural that migratory birds 

 should be more inclined to settle in wild and thinly-populated lands 

 than in such as are thickly-inhabited and avariciously cultivated, as 

 those of England. 



One of the oldest and principal methods of fowling employed in 

 eastern nations, is that of falconry ; and in this branch of the pursuit 

 the people of some countries exceed the best tactics of the English 

 falconer. Down to the present time the practice of hawking by the 

 brook is pursued in the East as ardently as ever,* and upon the most 

 modern and scientific principles ; so that it is evident if we wish to 

 see falconry to perfection we must go to eastern lands, where there 

 is an extent of wild country and other advantages favourable to the 

 sport, which cannot be found in England. 



Every one who is familiar with the history of foreign countries, 

 and who has read the works of voyagers and travellers, must have 



* Vide "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus;" by R. F. Burton : A.i>. 1852. 

 Oriental and Western Siberia ;" by T. W. Atkinson : A.D. 1.858. 



