316 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



Madagascar furnishes another peculiar form, and others still are found in the Malay 

 Archipelago and Australia. 



Few allusions have purposely been made thus far to the uses of birds of prey in 

 the chase, it being our intention to defer this until most of the species thus used 

 should have been mentioned in their regular places. It is therefore fitting, here, in 

 connection with the group of birds which has given its name to the sport, to devote a 

 few pages to the consideration of that most time-honored of all field sports, hawking 

 or falconry. This, in its broadest sense may be defined as the use of hawks or falcons 

 in the capture of other animals. In strictness, we ought, perhaps, to limit the term to 

 the actual taking of game with hawks or falcons, this being the sense in which it is 

 commonly understood. 



Yet trained hawks are still used merely to hover over game and prevent its flying 

 until it can be netted or killed ; and eagles or large falcons were formerly much used 

 in parts of Asia and Africa to annoy and hinder gazelles and deer, by flying in their 

 faces, and striking at nose, eyes, or back, thus retarding their flight, and giving time 

 for the hunters and dogs to come up. In one form or another falconry has undoubt- 

 edly an antiquity as great as that of the Egyptian mummies, as it is known to have 

 been practiced among the Egyptians centuries before the Christian Era, and certainly 

 flourished in China earlier than 600 B. c., probably existing there over a thousand 

 years earlier still. In Europe, also, it was a favorite pastime before the Christian Era, 

 but it was not introduced into England until about the middle of the ninth century, 

 and for the next eight hundred years was by far the most popular sport practised in 

 both England and France. 



Monarchs kept their hawks by hundreds, knights and ladies paid fabulous sums 

 for the best trained birds, and even peasants took to rearing sparrow-hawks and 

 kestrels, and spent their holidays in hunting sparrows and larks. Men gave their 

 lives to the study and training of falcons, and in many families generation succeeded 

 generation in the practice of this art, father handing down to son his store of experi- 

 ence, and with it often his well-earned place of honor at the castle or the court. At 

 one time we are told, " In the court of the King of Wales there were only three 

 officers of his household above the master of the hawks. This person occupied the 

 fourth place from the sovereign at the royal table, but he was prohibited from drink- 

 ing more than three times, lest he should become intoxicated, and, in consequence, 

 neglect his birds. Not only had he the management of the hawks and of the people 

 employed in this sport, but, when he had been very successful in it, the king was 

 accustomed to rise up and receive him on his entrance ; and even, on some occasions, 

 to hold his stirrup. Ethelston made North Wales provide him not only with so many 

 dogs as he chose, ' whose scent-pursuing noses might explore the haunts and coverts 

 of the deer,' but ' birds who knew how to hunt others along the sky.' In France 

 there was an officer called the * Grand Falconer,' who was a person of so much impor- 

 tance that his salary was four thousand florins, and he was attended by fifty gentle- 

 men and fifty assistant falconers. He was allowed to keep three hundred hawks ; he 

 licensed every vender of hawks in the kingdom, and received a fee on every one of 

 these birds that was sold. The king never rode out on any occasion of consequence 

 without being attended by this officer." 



Soon laws became necessary for the regulation and protection of the sport. In 

 the reign of Henry VII. the taking of the eggs of hawk or falcon was punishable with 

 imprisonment for ' a year and a day,' and a fine at the king's pleasure ; and this, too, 



