BIRDS TRAINED TO HUNT 115 



men taught certain sea birds to fish for them. 



It is not difficult to conceive how a man — or boy 

 — ^first undertook to employ birds of prey for his 

 own personal profit. He was a man of the open 

 plains, one initiated into the habits of wild hawks. 

 Month after month and season after season he 

 had watched the falcons strike at their quarry 

 high up in the heavens and had observed the baser 

 goshawks swoop and twist in savage pursuit of 

 low-flying victims. As he was possessed of im- 

 agination, the idea gradually grew in his brain 

 that one of those very hawks might be tamed and 

 properly trained to capture quarry for its mas- 

 ter. Without much trouble he snared a hawk, 

 gentled it, and put his ideas to the test. Success 

 attended his efforts — and a new means for ob- 

 taining food had been discovered. In some such 

 way falconry doubtless first had its beginning. 



As far back as 2000 b. c, we learn that hawks 

 were utilized for taking game in China. Three 

 hundred years later — and possibly before, though 

 the records fail to show proof — the sport had be- 

 come established in Persia. Some falconers of 

 India, where hawkiiig was introduced a short time 

 later, firmly believe that Persia was indeed its 

 home. Such a supposition is quite reasonable; 

 the sport — or art — ^might easily have had a si- 

 multaneous origin in different parts of the earth. 



Although falconry was at first utilized as a 

 means for capturing food it soon lost its purely 



