44 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
by those who dwelt on the river’s bank, a teal suddenly flew 
quickly away ; but the hawk baffled of his booty intercepted 
a pike swimming in the water, seized him, and carried him 
apparently forty feet on dry land... .” 
This is the same story rather differently referred to in 
“Hints on the Management of Hawks,” p. 171, where the 
author suggests that the bird may have been an Osprey ; 
the word stands in the original as nisus. The use of a 
tabor or drum for rousing water-fowl was not unusual, see 
Wright’s ‘“ History of Domestic Manners,” p. 308. 
Giraldus Cambrensis, his references to Hawks.—We next 
turn to the writings of Gerald de Barri, called Cambrensis, 
and here again there is something about Falconry. In his 
“ Topographica Hibernica’”’ (1183-1186), Guiraldus treats 
first of Hawks and Falcons, noticing that the female 
was larger than the male, and making other observations 
which Mr. Harting finds to be exact at the present day.* 
“ Eagles are as numerous here [in Ireland] as Kites are in 
other countries,” he says (ch. 1X.). Giraldus was probably 
familiar with the Kites in English towns, inclusive of London. 
In another place he says (ch. VIII.) :— 
“This country produces in greater number than any 
other hawks, falcons, and sparrow-hawks [nisos], a class of 
birds which nature has endowed with courageous instincts 
and armed with curved and powerful beaks and sharp talons 
to fit them as birds of prey.” This looks as if he did not 
write altogether from hearsay, but from observation. Then 
comes a curious story, but it is one which might hold 
good of other countries besides Ireland. “It is, however,’ 
he says (I follow Forrester’s translation), “‘a remarkable 
fact in the history of this tribe of birds, that their nests are 
not more numerous than they were many centuries ago ; and 
although they have broods every year, their numbers do not 
increase.” 
This is exactly what has struck many a modern naturalist 
not only in regard to birds of prey, but about many other 
species as well. The explanation of it must be that a certain 
extent of land is meant to hold a certain number of birds, 
and the rest either migrate or die. There would not be food 
* “ Zoologist,” 1881, p 436. 
