THE ZOOLOGIST. 
THIRD SERIES. 
Vou. IV.) FRY tS eG: 
HAWKS AND HAWKING.# 
By J. E. Hariine, F.LS., F.Z.8. 
Ir has been said that the history of animals interests us in 
proportion as they are of service to us, or are the means of 
providing us with amusement. Hawks are capable of both, and 
on this account, therefore, may be said to deserve a greater share 
of attention than is generally accorded to them at the present 
day. We are all hunters by nature. We have an inherent passion 
for chasing and taking wild animals, and feel an inward satis- 
faction in outwitting their natural instinct which prompts them 
to fly from us, by our reason which is exercised by observation 
of their habits. Our ancestors were hunters through necessity. 
They had to chase and kill wild animals in order to live. They 
either pursued them with hounds till they were brought to bay, 
and then slew them with sword or spear, or stalked them in 
the forest, and killed them with bow and arrow, or with a 
sling. The larger animals were taken in nets, pitfalls, or other 
devices, and succumbed to the united strength of numerous 
assailants. 
Birds which in their own element, the air, evaded pursuit, 
were taken either in snares or with birdlime, the use of which 
appears to have been known at a very early date. By degrees, it 
would seem, from continued observation of their predatory habits, 
hunters conceived the idea of snaring birds of prey and of training 
* Being the substance of one of the ‘ Davis Lectures,’ delivered at the Zoological 
Gardens, June 24th, 1880, 
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