190 BOOKS ON FALCONRY. 



details of interest to falconers), this is the only work in Russian 

 which has come to hand relating exclusively to the subject of 

 hawking. It is divided into twelve chapters, preceded by an 

 Introduction in which the author states (p. 4) that the chief 

 obstacle to the revival of the sport in Russia is the want of pro- 

 fessional falconers, who should come, he says, from England, 

 Holland, or elsewhere, like John Barr, the well-known Scotch 

 falconer, who was engaged for some time by the Champagne 

 Hawking Club, in an attempt to revive the sport in France. 



The first chapter is entitled Istoricheskii ocherk oi)otl s' 

 lobcheme ptitzami, or historical outlines of the chase with 

 raptorial birds. In this we find a good many details which have 

 been given by previous authors, though we do not remember to 

 have elsewhere met with the statement (p. 6) that, in Prussia, 

 Hochmeister Conrad von Jungingen founded a school of 

 Falconry in 1396. 



In Russia hawking with Falcons, Goshawks, and berkuts (or 

 eagles) — o^ota s' sokolafjii, yastrebami, i berkutami — was very 

 widely practised (p. 6), and was for centuries a favourite amuse- 

 ment (p. 8). Sementovski's " Narrative of the Hunting of the 

 Princes of Kiev " (No. 333) is quoted (p. 8), and the doings of the 

 Tsar Alexis Michaelovitch, who is said by some to have inherited 

 his taste for Falconry from his grandfather, Feodor Nikitiche 

 Romanoff, and by others to have imbibed it from his tutor, 

 Morozoff (p. 9). Adelung's account of Baron Meyerberg's travels 

 in Russia is quoted, and Korsakoff's description (No. 335) of the 

 imperial hawking stud at the village of Kolomensk (p. 10) and of 

 the ceremony of appointing a royal falconer (pp. 11-15)5 already 

 noticed. After the death of the Tsar Alexis, Falconry became 

 neglected in Russia. When Peter I. came to the throne the trans- 

 port of falcons from Verkotourie was stopped. The Empress 

 Elizabeth Petrovna sometimes went out hawking in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Moscow, as did also the Empress Catharine II., 

 who especially loved a flight with Merlins, oxoxa ct Aep^HHuaMH. 

 The last hawking seen at the Russian Court (until the establish- 

 ment, in February 1884, of the new Falconry Club) was at the 

 coronation of the Emperor Alexander II. in 1856, when berkutes 

 (eagles) were brought from Orenburg for the purpose of being 

 flown in the demesne of Count Tolstoi at bagged wolves and foxes. 



The second chapter indicates the chief divisions of birds of 

 prey used for the chase, with general remarks on the Falcon, 



