238 FALCONRY 



house there is a portrait of Sir Ralph in the Court costume of 

 the period, with a falcon on his hand bearing a jewelled hood. 

 Not far from the manor house is the old chalk pit, to this day 

 known as ' Sadler's Pit,' where tradition says that a member of 

 the chief falconer's family met his death by unwarily galloping 

 over its precipitous edge while eagerly following a flight. There 

 is an ancient hostelry hard by the spot which has now for many 

 years been selected as the headquarters of the Old Hawking 

 Club, showing how little the character of the country has 

 changed since Sir Ralph Sadler selected it as the best he could 

 find for the sport he loved so well. 



That hawking was intensely popular in the days of Shake- 

 speare can be proved ' by a hundred trite quotations, which we 

 spare our reader, with the exception of one which shows so 

 perfect a knowledge of the falconer's practice, and is expressed 

 so exactly in the technical language of a falconer, that it is hard 

 to believe it was written by anyone who was not a perfect 

 adept in the art. It is in ' The Taming of the Shrew,' where 

 Petruchio says of Katherine 



My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty ; 

 And, till she stoop, she must not be full gorged, * 

 For then she never looks upon her lure. 

 Another way I have to man my haggard, 

 To make her come, and know her keeper's call ; 

 That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites 

 That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient. 

 She ate no meat to-day, nor none shall eat ; 

 Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not. 



Had Petruchio been a falconer describing exactly the manage- 

 ment of a real falcon of unruly temper he could not have done 

 it in more accurate language. 



But to pass by the ancient practice and to come to modern 

 falconry. There, again, we find the art fully described in many 

 a work. Campbell's treatise, dated 1773, though full of extra- 

 vagant nonsense, contains many a useful hint. The brief trea- 

 tise of Sir John Sebright (1828) is most excellent, and has but 



