56 FALCONIDjft. 



frequently flown at Partridges, and sometimes at Magpies. 

 The young of the year, on account of the red tinge of their 

 plumage, are called, the female, a Bed Falcon, and the male, 

 a Bed Tiercel, to distinguish them from those which have 

 accomplished their first moult. Eyas, or Nyas, is the name 

 of a young bird taken from the nest, as distinguished from the 

 Peregrine or Passage-Hawk, a young bird caught during the 

 season of migration ; while Haggard is used for a bird caught 

 after the first moult is completed, and reclaimed. If kept 

 over a moult, they were then called Intermewed Hawks. The 

 term Gentil Falcon seems to have often had a general rather 

 than a particular meaning, and the bird so called by Pennant 

 is certainly a Gos-Hawk, while the Lanner of the same 

 author is a young female of the present species, at which 

 age it bears some resemblance to the true Lanner, Falco 

 lanarius, which probably has never been killed in this 

 country. 



Sir John Sebright, in his ' Observations on Hawking,' 

 thus describes the mode of taking Herons: "A well- 

 stocked heronry in an open country is necessary for this 

 sport, and this may be seen in the greatest perfection at 

 Didlington in Norfolk, the seat of Colonel Wilson.* This 

 heronry is situated on a river, with an open country on 

 every side of it. The herons go out in the morning to rivers 

 and ponds at a very considerable distance, in search of food, 

 and return to the heronry towards the evening. 



"It is at this time that the falconers place themselves 

 in the open country, down wind of the heronry; so that 

 when the herons are intercepted on their return home, they 

 are obliged to fly against the wind to gain their place of 

 retreat. When a heron passes, a cast (a couple) of hawks 

 is let go. The heron disgorges his food when he finds that 



Professor Schlegel in his great work has shown this derivation to be an error, 

 and the name appears to have been given from the old belief that each nest 

 contained three young birds, of which two were females and the third and 

 smallest a male. Traite de Fauconnerie, p. 1, note. 



* Subsequently Lord Berners. Didlington is now (1871) the property of Mr. 

 Tyssen Amhurst, and the heronry, though its site is changed, still exists. 



