ANTIQUITY OF FALCONRY. 2x9 



it being notorious that Larks, and even Partridges, will, by the ter- 

 ror of a Hawk paffing over them, lie fo ftill as to fufFer themfelves 

 to be taken by any paflenger. Here feenns to have been no training 

 of thefe Thracian Hawks, but a mere cafual concurrence of Hawks and 

 fmall birds, which afforded now and then an amufement to the youth 

 of the country. The thought exprelTed on the antient gem, of little 

 Genii engaged in the chace of Deer, affifted by an Eagle, may have 

 -originated from this ftory. 



The Poet only defci-ibes another kind of bird-catching, in the 

 following epigram on the fate of a Plawk : 



Prsdo fuit volucrum, famslus nunc Aucupis, idem 



Decipit, et captas non libi, moeret, aves f. ^ 



By the word decipit., it is plain that the Hawk was not trained ; but 

 was merely ufed as a ftale, either to entice fmall birds under a net, < 

 or to the limed twigs : the laft is a method ftill in ufe in Italy ^ The 

 Italians call it Uccellare con la Civetta ; for inftead of a Hawk, they 

 place a fmall fpecies of Owl on a pole, in the middle of a field ; and 

 furround it, at various diftances, with lime-twigs. The fmall birds, 

 from their ftrange propenfity to approach rapacious fowls, fly around, 

 perch on the rods, and are taken in great numbers '^. A Hawk would 

 ferve the purpofe full as well. Pliny mentions the ufe of bird-lime ((; 

 and Longus, in his elegant romance of Daphnis and Chios, employs 

 the latter to catch little birds for his beloved §. 



I cannot find any certainty of Hawks being trained for diverlion 

 before the time of King Ethelbert, the Saxon monarch ; who died in 

 the year 760 ^. He wrote into Germany for a brace of Falcons 

 which would fly at Cranes and bring them to the ground *, as there 

 were very few fuch in Kent. This fliews how erroneous the opinion 

 was, of thoie who place it in the reign of the emperor Frederic Bar- 



t Lib. xiv. ep. 216. J Olina, 65. || Hijl. Nat. lib. xvi. c. 44, 



§ Fr. ed. oftavo, 8z. f Saxon Chr. 60. 



* Quoted by Mr. Whitaker in Hiji. Manchejier, from Max. Bibliotheca Patrum, xiii.- 

 p. 85. ep. 40, 



F f 2 barojfa. 



