THE HAWK TRIBE. 149 



they not only returned to their owners when called, 

 but brought whatever they might have captured in 

 their flight. Some North American Indians under- 

 stand the art of Naming these birds, and are equally 

 fond of the sport ; but it has been remarked, that 

 when the hard winters set in, the birds, if not con- 

 fined, take wing, and are never seen again. In 

 China, it is a favourite amusement with some of the 

 Mandarins, or great people, to hawk for butterflies, 

 and other large insects, with birds trained for that 

 particular sport. In India, the Goshawk, and two 

 other species, are taught to keep hovering over the 

 hunters' heads, and when deer or other game starts 

 up, they dart down, as has been before stated, and 

 fix their claws upon its head, and thus bewilder it, 

 till the pursuers come up. 



Near Tripoli, in Africa, on the wide plains, Bus- 

 tards are very common, a large bird, once plentiful 

 in some parts of England, though now, in conse- 

 quence of the increase of population, and enclosure 

 of the waste tracts of land, no longer to be seen; 

 they are larger than Turkeys, and though their 

 wings are so short as to be of little use to them in 

 flying, they enable them to use their long legs with 

 a speed equal to that of a greyhound, and afford 

 excellent sport when pursued by Hawks ; and Bus- 

 tard-coursing is therefore a favourite amusement 

 with persons of rank in that country. Hawking, 

 however, to any extent, is, at the present day, 

 nothing, compared with what it was a few hundred 

 years ago, in England, and many parts of Europe, 

 when it was followed with an eagerness and a 

 degree of expense far beyond the cost of fox-hunting, 



