BIRDS OF PREY. 295 



undisturbed and at leisure. Some species consume large quantities of insects, but no true Falcon in its 

 free state will eat carrion. The process of digestion is accomplished during a light sleep into which 

 these birds usually fall when satiated, and during which they sit perched upon some tree with stream- 

 ing and disordered plumage. During the summer they live in pairs, and will allow no intruder 

 to approach the spot where they have selected their building place, but at other seasons 

 they occasionally associate with their congeners and form large flocks, which remain together for 

 weeks and months at a time ; towards Eagles or Owls, en the contrary, they exhibit the utmost 

 enmity, and many are the sturdy combats that ensue should the rival marauders encroach upon each 

 other's hunting grounds. 



The eyrie of the Noble Falcons is usually very carelessly constructed, and, indeed, some of them 

 will not take the trouble to make even ordinary preparation for their young, but seize upon the nests 

 of some of the larger species of Ravens ; whilst such as do build for themselves are content with almost 

 any situation, and merely collect a rough heap of sticks in the holes of trees, rocks, old walls, or even 

 on the ground, the only care for the comfort of the young family consisting in the arrangement of a 

 slight bed of some fibrous material, upon which the brood is laid. The eggs, from three to seven in 

 number, vary considerably in their appearance, but are for the most part round, rough-shelled, and of 

 a. pale reddish brown, marked with small spots and large patches of a darker shade. The female alone 

 sits upon the nest, and is meanwhile tended with much assiduity by her mate, who endeavours to 

 enliven her during the performance of her monotonous duty by every means in his power. The young 

 receive the utmost care and attention from both parents, even after they have left the nest, and are 

 instructed and defended from danger with most unwearying devotion. 



Perhaps few creatures are so destructive to game and poultry as these Falcons, and yet for 

 centuries they were regarded with distinguished favour by man, who had learnt how to subdue them 

 to his service. So long ago as 400 years before Christ we hear of their being employed in the chase, 

 and in the sixth century the passion for falconry had attained to such an extravagant excess that it was 

 openly reprobated and forbidden in the churches ; but even after this the barons, it is said, maintained 

 their right to place their Falcons on the altar during the hours of Divine service. So violent was the 

 rage for this pursuit in England that Edward III. commanded that those who killed a Falcon should 

 be punished with death, and condemned to imprisonment for a year and a day whoever should take 

 one of their nests. To such a high value had they risen in 1396 that the Duke of Nevers and many 

 other noble captives were liberated by Bajazet on the payment of twelve white Falcons, sent to him by 

 the Duke of Burgundy as their ransom. Francis I. kept no fewer than 300 of these valuable birds, 

 which were reared under the care of an officer, who had fifteen noblemen and fifty falconers to assist 

 him in his duties. In England hawking was performed on horseback or on foot — on horseback when 

 in the fields and open country, and on foot when in the woods and coverts. In following the Hawk 

 on foot it was usual for the sportsman to have a stout pole with him to assist him in leaping over 

 little rivulets and ditches ; this we learn from an historical fact related by Hall, who informs us that 

 Henry VIII. pursuing his Hawk on foot at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, attempted, with the assistance 

 of his pole, to jump over a ditch that was half full of muddy water, the pole broke, and the king fell 

 with his head into the mud, where he would have been stifled had not a footman leaped into the ditch 

 and released His Majesty from his perilous situation. When the Hawk was not flying at her game, she 

 was usually hoodwinked with a cap or hood provided for that purpose and fitted to her head, and this 

 hood was worn abroad as well as at home. All Hawks taken upon "the fist" the term used for carrying 

 them upon the hand, had strips of leather, called jesses, put about their legs, and the jesses were made 

 sufficiently long for the knots to appear between the middle and little fingers of the hand that held 

 them, so that the luncs, or small thongs of leather, might be fastened to them with two tyrrits, or 



