LATIN. 169 



mum edita Augustse Vindelicorum 1596, nunc fideliter 

 repetita, et annotationlbus iconlbusque additis emen- 

 data aeque illustrata. Accedunt Alberti Magni 

 Capita de Falconibus Asturibus et Accipitribus 

 quibus Annotationes addidit suas Jo. Gottl. Schneider, 

 Saxo, Eloquent, et Philolog. Professor. Lipsise. 

 1788. 2 vols, in I. 4to. 



It is asserted by many writers that the art ot Falconry was 

 unknown in Italy before the twelfth century, when it was intro- 

 duced by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. His grandson 

 Frederick II. (bom 1 194, died 1250) spent much of his life in Italy 

 and Sicily, and practised this sport there with great enthusiasm. 

 (See von Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstmifen, second ed., Leip- 

 zig, 1 841, vol. iii. pp. 423-434.) He had seen something of 

 it 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 Latin with 

 the title above given was the first which appeared in the West, 

 and is still one of the best which exists. 



There would seem, however, to be someblanks in it, and, in par- 

 ticular, a chapter on the Goshawk is wanting, to which reference 

 is made Lib. ii. cap. 2. 



The hawks used at that time were the Jerfalcon, Saker, 

 Peregrine Falcon, Lanner, Goshawk, and Sparrow-hawk. (The 

 e^le, he says, is too heavy to be carried on the fist.) These 

 were either taken out of the nest or caught on passage. It was 

 also the practice to take the eggs out of the nest and get them 

 hatched under hens, but the Emperor himself maintained that 

 birds thus procured were useless for the purposes of Falconry. 

 He advises (Lib. ii. cap. 31, p. 91) that the eyesses should be 

 left as long as possible in the nest, as they are brought up far 

 better there than in captivity. It is necessary, he says, to feed 

 them well, in order to avoid injury to their feathers, by which 

 expression, no doubt, he refers to what English falconers term 



