The Zoologist — Octobeb, 1866. 405 



word "enmew" would seem rather to signify to " seize upon" or to 

 " disable." This word is sometimes written " enewe." In Thomas 

 Nash's ' Quaternio, or a Fourefold Way to a Happie Life,' published 

 in 1633, it occurs in a spirited description of hawking at water-fowl : — 



" And to hear an accipitary relate againe how he went forth in a 

 cleare calme and sunshine evening, about an houre before the sunne 

 did usually maske himselfe, unto the river, where, finding of a mal- 

 lard, he whistled off his fauleon, and how shee flew from him as if 

 shee would never have turned head againe, yet presently upon a shoote 

 came in ; how then by degrees, by little and little, by flying about 

 and about, shee mounted so high, until shee had lessened herselfe to 

 the view of the beholder to the shape of a pigeon or partridge, and 

 had made the height of the moone the place of her flight ; how pre- 

 sently, upon the landing of the fowle, shee came downe like a stone 

 and enewed it, and suddenly got up againe, and suddenly upon a 

 second landing came downe againe, and missing of it, in the downe 

 course recovered it beyond expectation, to the admiration of the 

 beholder at a long flight." 



In the days of Falconry a peculiar method, of repairing a broken 

 wing-feather was known to falconers by the term " imping." 



The verb "to imp" appears to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon 

 "impan," signifying to graft or inoculate, and the mode of operation 

 is thus described in a rare pamphlet by Sir John Sebright, entitled 

 ' Observations on Hawking' : — 



" When any of the flight or tail-feathers of a hawk are accidentally 

 broken, the speed of the bird is so injured that the falconer finds it 

 necessary to repair them by an expedient called ' imping.' 



" This curious process consists in attaching to the part that remains 

 an exact substitute for the piece lost. For this purpose the falconer 

 is always provided with pinions (right and left) and with tail-feathers 

 of hawks, or with the feathers separated fi"om the pinion, carefully 

 preserved and numbered, so as to prevent mistake in taking a true 

 match for the injured feather. He then with a sharp knife gently 

 parts the web of the feather to be repaired, at its thickest part, and 

 cuts the shaft obliquely forward, so as not to damage the web on the 

 opposite edge. He next cuts the substitute feather as exactly as pos- 

 sible at the corresponding point, and with the same degree of slope. 



" For the purpose of uniting them he is provided with an iron 

 needle, with broad angular points at both ends ; and after wetting the 

 needle with salt and water, he thrusts it into the centre of the pith of 



