HAWKS AND HAWKING. 285 
sovereign ceased to take an interest in the sport, the courtiers 
and their friends followed suit. 
It would not be difficult, did space here permit, to fill up the 
intervening gap in the history of Falconry in England, between 
the period to which I refer and the present time, and an interesting 
account might be given of the principal hawking establishments 
which have been maintained in the United Kingdom during the 
past and present centuries. 
On hawking in Scotland and in Ireland two separate chapters 
might be written; while to give a sketch of the English poets, 
dramatists, and novelists who have described or touched upon 
hawking, and to criticise the knowledge of the subject displayed 
by them, would necessitate the preparation of a moderate-sized 
volume. 
I must reluctantly leave untouched these branches of the 
subject, and come to the practical part of my discourse, which is 
to give some account of the various hawks employed by falconers ; 
to point out the particular respects in which hawks and falcons 
differ; to describe the mode in which they are captured, tamed, 
and trained; and to indicate the particular “quarry” (as it 
is termed) or prey which each is flown at. Above all, bearing in 
mind the object of the course of lectures now in progress, I shall 
endeavour to show how much practical instruction may be gained 
upon the subject under discussion by a careful examination and 
comparison of the hawks and falcons now living in the Zoological 
Society’s Gardens. 
It is hardly necessary to observe that the birds under con- 
sideration all belong to the order Accipitres, or Birds of Prey, an 
order which may be regarded as the most natural in the system, 
because it is founded not upon a single character, but upon the 
general habit of the birds, in the formation of which all their 
leading organisations bear a part. It seems natural that the 
Accipitres should stand at the head of any system of ornithological 
classification, because wings are the grand characteristics of 
birds which especially distinguish them from all other vertebrated 
animals, and therefore those species in which the organs of flight 
are most highly developed may be regarded as the most typical of 
their class. 
All birds of prey have certain characters in common which 
distinguish them as an order from other birds, namely, a powerful 
