HAWKS. 175 



long as the chickens were young and helpless, but 

 gradually slackened as they grew older: the habits 

 of affection, however, never entirely ceased, for the 

 chickens, after they became full-grown fowls, re- 

 mained with it, and all lived together in the same 

 garden in perfect harmony. A single instance of so 

 extraordinary a deviation from the general habits of 

 birds, might have been received with hesitation, but 

 when corroborated by similar occurrences, on record 

 in other places, its truth scarcely admits of a doubt. 

 We have heard, indeed, a still more extraordinary 

 circumstance, namely, that of an Eagle, at an inn 

 at Uxbridge, which also hatched and brought up 

 several broods of poultry. 



The attention of the Turks and Egyptians to cer- 

 tain Hawks, most probably arises from the respect paid 

 to them in ancient times, when the Hawk was held 

 sacred, and when even accidentally to kill one was 

 punished by a heavy fine; and designedly to deprive 

 it of life was a capital offence, and the culprit suf- 

 fered death. Various reasons are mentioned by old 

 writers for this veneration. Thus the Eagle was wor- 

 shipped, as a royal bird, and the favourite of their 

 god Jupiter. The Hawks were worshipped for dif- 

 ferent reasons ; some because they were supposed to 

 destroy scorpions, serpents, and divers dangerous 

 reptiles. Others again were deified, or held sacred, 

 because the priests, or augurs, as they were called, 

 made use of their swift flight in their divinations, 



O ' 



or pretended foretellings of events which were to 

 happen. And others, again, looked upon them as 

 sacred, from an ancient tradition, stating, that once 

 upon a time, a book, bound about with a scarlet 



