60 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Durham,' p. 10, states, "Not only do all the true Falcons acquire their adult 

 plumage in the first moult, but many of the ignoble species do so likewise, 

 as the Honey-Buzzard, the Goshawk, the Sparrow-Hawk, and the Harriers. 

 The fact cannot be too strongly pressed on the attention of ornithologists ; 

 for it leads to a correct understanding of the variations of the plumage of 

 the Falconidse." 



The musket is said to have derived its name from this hawk. Baring 

 Gould, in his book on Iceland, gives, p. 205, " Latin muscatus (speckled) ; and 

 from its spotted plumage the Sparrow- Hawk was called mousquet in French, 



moscketto in Italian, and musket in English. 



' How now my eyas musket.' 



Merry Wives of Windsor. 



When firearms took the place of these birds in the chase, the name was 



transferred to them." Mr. Harting, in his ' Ornithology of Shakespeare,' 



p. 74, mentions the same " eyas," signifying nestling. He calls attention, 



however, to the fact that it is asserted also that the musket was invented by 



the Muscovites in the fifteenth century. Thomas Pennant, in the ' British 



Zoology,' vol. i. p. 240, " Falconry," gives the following ; — ■" In those days " 



(«". e. Henry VI.) "it was thought sufficient for noblemen's sons to wind 



their horn and to carry their hawk fair, and leave study and learning to the 



children of mean people. (Biog. Brit., article Caxton.)" Now Accipitrine 



birds have lost their interest ; guns and hedgerows have done away with 



hawking. At Brighton the following Hawks have all been brought to me 



captured in clap-nets, drawn in by the decoy-bird : — Hobby, Merlin, Sparrow- 



Hawk, Kestrel, Montagu's Harrier. Curiosity sometimes takes birds into the 



net, which ends to them as fatally as did the expedition of that Kingfisher 



who attempted to explore the courts of the British Museum, Dec. 23, 1874, 



and there met a glorious and historic death. 



