2 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



draw metaphor and simile from these many-virtued wild 

 fowl; and half our best families, half the best families in 

 Europe, have a hawk of one kind or another for their crest. 



This suggests the second count upon which the kind 

 have proved useful to men, that, namely, wherein they have 

 been associated with him in the pursuit of game another 

 link of much antiquity. 



The kings of Babylon and Nineveh no doubt knew some- 

 thing of hawking, while the science is also of immeasurable 

 antiquity in China and amongst the wild tribes of Central 

 Asia. With the Normans and their conquest the art was 

 brought to a fine, chivalrous perfection in this country ; 

 franklin and baron maintaining their own falconers and 

 mews, while troubadours filled ballad and ditty with allusions 

 to "gay goshawks," "gentle faucons," or their kindred. 

 Then, we take it, it was a good time for all the race, as much 

 in fashion as their quarry, the pheasants, partridges, and 

 grouse are to-day. 



Next to heraldry, falconry ranked in esteem under Nor- 

 mans and those who followed them. Only certain kinds of 

 birds might be kept by certain subjects. For kings there 

 was the ger-falcon ; for princes, the falcon-gentle, or tercel- 

 gentle ; dukes had the rock-falcon, and earls the peregrine ; a 

 baron might use the bastard-falcon, and a knight the sacre 

 and sacret ; esquires, harrier or lanneret ; a lady, the merlin ; 

 "young men " had the hobby, and yeomen the goshawk; the 

 tercel was for a poor man, and sparrow-hawk for a priest ; 

 " the musket for a holy- water clerk, and kestrel for a knave." 



This baronial hawking must have been pleasant enough 

 sport then, when the Thames ran through eternal groves of 

 oak and hazel, and the Severn shone in sunlight through 

 far-stretching birch coppices ; while the Midland and Western 

 counties, with their great fen lands and open downs, sup- 

 plied ample preserves for the wild-fowl to fly the falcons at. 

 But to-day hawking is in abeyance the pastime of a wise 

 few who are, moreover, fortunate enough to live where it can 



