26 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
pursuit of the Fox, the Hare and the Roe-buck. These terms 
are easily understood and imply that Bears, Squirrels and 
Pheasants were in existence to be hunted. Howel also 
alludes to Hawking, which must have been introduced by 
the Saxons into the less mountainous parts of Wales. There 
are, he says, three animals whose feet are of the same value 
as their lives, that is to say, without them they would be 
worthless—a Horse, a Hawk, and a Greyhound. 
Athelstan and Edward the Confessor—When Athelstan, 
the Saxon, defeated the King of Wales in 937, he imposed 
upon him for tribute, among other things, the providing of 
“birds trained to make prey of others in the air.” This 
is related in the “ Gesta Regum Anglorum” of William of 
Malmesbury, who died in 1143.* No doubt these birds 
which preyed on others were, as Mr. Harting supposes, 
Hawks for hunting: the expression is very applicable. 
The same historian says of Edward the Confessor, who 
died in 1066, that his greatest enjovment was in hounds, and 
in “ the pouncing of birds, whose nature it is to prey on their 
kindred species.” These ‘‘pouncing” birds must also have 
been Hawks, trained for the chase like the others which were 
rendered to Athelstan. 
Joseph Strutt thinks that the Confessor wrote, or 
commanded to be written, a treatise on hawking,{ which 
would be a valuable book, if we possessed it, showing the 
growth of the sport. Itis related of him that every day after 
divine service was over he spent the rest of his leisure in 
bunting or hawking. “It was his chiefest delight,” says 
Mr. Harting, quoting the historian, “‘to follow a pack of 
swift hounds in pursuit of their game.’’$ 
There is one very interesting and ancient illustration of 
hawking which is given in Strutt’s work, and which is also 
referred to by Mr. Harting, taken from a manuscript of the 
tenth century. 
It is a painting in six colours, representing a Saxon 
nobleman on horseback, with a Gyr falcon on his right hand, 
* English Trans., edn. 1815, p. 154. 
t Tic., p. 283. 
t “Sports and Pastimes,” 1801, p. 25. 
§ ‘Essays on Sport,” pp. 71, 72. 
