INTRODUCTION. xiii 



for in a Japanese work (No. 376), of which a French trans- 

 lation appeared at the beginning of the present century, it is 

 stated that falcons were amongst the presents made to princes 

 in the time of the Hia dynasty, which is supposed to have 

 commenced in the year 2205 b.c. 



It would carry me far beyond the limits of this Intro- 

 duction were I to attempt to trace here the history and 

 progress of Falconry, although the necessary materials are at 

 hand in the works which I have catalogued. On this part of 

 the subject a second volume might be written. Suffice it to 

 remark, that the sport was introduced into Europe from the 

 East, and that there is reason to believe that Hawking was 

 practised by Europeans at least three centuries before the 

 Christian era.* 



It is remarkable how on almost every point the falconers of 

 the East and West are agreed. Although the communication 

 between them has been interrupted for centuries, their general 

 system of treatment, and the many ingenious contrivances, 

 either discovered or handed down from posterity, are very 

 similar. Both make use of jesses, leashes, bells, and hoods, 

 varying only in pattern and material. They imp broken flight- 

 feathers in the same way, and both bathe and weather their 

 hawks, feed and give castings, in the same manner. 



This alone would prove the ancient origin of Falconry, 

 which appears to have had but one source, and probably to 

 have been introduced by the Indo-Germanic race from the 

 plains of Hindostan, so favourable to Hawking. 



On looking into the history of Falconry in Europe, one 

 figure of a great falconer in the Middle Ages stands out 

 prominently — namely, the Emperor Frederick II. of Germany, 

 who died in 1 2 50. He had seen something of Hawking in the 

 East, and in 1239, on his return from a Crusade which he 

 had undertaken the year before, when he was crowned King 

 of Jerusalem and Sicily, he brought with him from Syria and 

 Arabia several expert falconers with their hawks, and spent 

 much of his leisure time in learning from them the secrets of 

 their art, which he considered the noblest and most worthy of 

 all the arts. The excellent treatise which he composed in 

 * See No. 79 of this Catalogue, p. 69. 



