(86 BOOKS ON FALCONRY, 



the duties of a newly appointed falconer, which were read out to 

 him in presence of the Tsar, and includes the form of his 

 * appointment and investiture with the insignia of his office, 

 namely, an ermine cap, apair of gloves, and a silver shoulder-belt, 

 from which hung a red velvet falconer's bag containing the 

 certificate of his appointment and a copy of the oath administered 

 to him, in addition to which he received a lure, a silver horn, 

 and a hawking-glove. 



During this reign, Falconry may be said to have reached its 

 zenith in Russia, and although to some extent hawking was 

 carried on by the successors of Alexis Michaelovitch, with his 

 death national enthusiasm for the sport died out. 



The weak state of health of the Tsar Feodor Alexejevitch, 

 the insufficient means of Ivan Alexejevitch to keep up so 

 costly an appurtenance of state, and the early inclinations of 

 Peter the Great for occupations of a very different kind, 

 caused Falconry to lose much of the importance which once 

 attached to it in Russia, and reduced it to comparative insignifi- 

 cance. 



During the last few years an attempt has been made to revive 

 the sport in that country by the formation at St. Petersburg, in 

 1884, of a Russian Falconry Club (see Haller, No. 336), of 

 which, in 1888, the present writer was elected an honorary 

 member. 



332. 3EBCniIin3 (B.). COBEPniEHHblli ErEPT*. 1779. 



Zevschin^ {B.). Sovershdnnli Eger\i.e..,jager\. i779' 



Zevschin (V.). The Complete Sportsman. 1779. 



According to this writer, in his day considered an authority 

 on field sports, and cited by Haller, No. -^ji^^ p. 73, the 

 Russian falconers distinguished three different kinds of noithern 

 Jerfalcons used by them for hawking, namely, the White Jerfalcon, 

 Chetvertnoi krechet^ considered very rare; the Spotted Jer- 

 falcon, Pouketovoi krechety with black spots on a white ground ; 

 and the Grey Jerfalcon, Send krechet, of a pale-grey colour, 

 probably the immature plumage. 



Besides these there is the Saker, which the Russian falconers 

 call Krasnii krechet, or Red Jerfalcon, from the reddish or 

 sandy colour of the dorsal plumage. 



