525 



ADDENDUM.— ANTIQUITY OF FALCONRY. 



The earliest classical notice of falconry is in. " Aristotle's History of 

 Animals," Book IX, Chapter 24, where he describes wild hawks as assist- 

 ing Thracian fowlers by waiting on them, when the birds fell to the 

 earth " through fear " and the men killed them with sticks. 



Pliny has adapted this story without special acknowledo-ment 

 beyond the words traditum est ; (he acknowledges his general 

 obligation to Aristotle elsewhere ). But the quotation is marked by the 

 next sentence, which, in both writers, refers to blackmail levied by 

 wolves on the fishermen of the Palus Macotis. -^ ("Natural History," 

 Book X, Chapter VIII.) 



He does not specify the means of actual capture used by the men. 



^lian, again, quotes the same story from either Pliny or Aristotle, still 

 without acknowledgment (except the word ahono)^ and improves it by 

 giving the fowlers nets ; into which the hawks drive the other birds, 

 (Not. Animal, II, p. 42.) All three put the scene in Thrace, and all 

 three describe the fowlers as giving the hawks some of the birds taken 

 on the ground. All three think of the hawks as wild. It is tolerably 

 clear that Aristotle knew and understood little of the matter, that Pliny- 

 knew nothing but from Aristotle, and that J^^lian depended on them, 

 except for his nets, which he may have put in as an improvement on 

 the passage quoted. He has a bad repute for that sort of garbling. 



Aristotle wrote in the fourth century B.C.j Pliny in the first century 

 A.D., and -3]lian in the second. 



But Martial, whose life overlapped both Pliny'f.*and Elian's, writes 

 expressly and clearly in the epigram *' Aceipiter " (Book XIV, 216): — 

 *' Praedo fuit volucrunif famulus nunc-aceiipis, inde. 

 iJecipitj et captas non sibi mocret aues ;" 

 which may be roughly translated — 



" Who want to take his prey of fowl, now, as the fowler's drudge, 

 Still takes them, but not for himself ; and doth the same begrudge." 



This epigram was written, or at least published, from Bilbilis, is 

 what is now Aragon, in Spain, between 100 A.D., when Martial re- 

 turned home after 35 years in Italy, and his death, about 104. 



He clearly speaks of a hawk caught wild, and used afterwards in 

 the chase. The fowler takes the quarry from the hawk, instead of 

 giving it part of what he has caught, as in the Thracian story. 



