36 BOOKS ON FAL CONR Y. 



when she bated." He means the tyrrits (Fr. tourettes), which 

 took the place of the modern swivel. Bewits are thin strips of 

 leather by which the bells are fastened to the hawk's legs. 

 Sect. X., " Early treatises on Hawking," is very meagre. Com- 

 pare the account of MSS. on Falconry in the British Museum 

 given in No. 8i, pp. ii.-xvii. 



57. THORNTON (Colonel T.). A Sporting Tour 

 through the Northern Parts of England and great 

 part of the Highlands of Scotland ; including remarks 

 on English and Scottish landscape, etc. By Colonel T. 

 Thornton, of Thorn ville Royal, in Yorkshire. De 

 gustibus noil est disputandum. London. Printed for 

 Vernon and Hood, 31 Poultry; Constable and Hunter, 

 Edinburgh ; and Brush and Reid, Glasgow ; by James 

 Swan, Angel Street. 1804. 4^. 



Contains much practical information on falconry, and details 

 of the sport, especially grouse-hawking (in which the author was 

 very successful) snipe-hawking and kite-hawking. He was the 

 only falconer of modern times who procured a young goshawk 

 from a nest in Great Britain. This bird was taken in the forest 

 of Rothiemurcus (p. 76), where there were a few eyries in the 

 great fir trees, some of which he saw (p. 107). He formed a 

 Falconers' Club, of which the following amongst others were 

 members : the Earl of Orford, the Earl of Eglinton, Mr. Las- 

 celles, Mr. Parson, Mr. Edward Parson, the Duke of Rutland and 

 Mr. P. Stanley. They found Alconbury Hill a very desirable 

 place to meet at for part of the season, on account of the number 

 of Kites which were then to be found there, and which afforded 

 excellent sport. They used then to go on to Barton Mills, as 

 appears by a memorandum in the handwriting of Col. Thornton, 

 which in 1823 (the year of his death) was in possession of Mr. 

 T. Gosden. After showing good sport with his hawks for nine 

 years he was presented by Lord Orford, on behalf of himself and 

 other subscribers, in 1781, with a handsome silver-gilt urn, on 

 the cover of which is the appropriate design of a Goshawk holding 

 a Hare. This urn, which passed into the possession of Col. 



