CHAPTER II 



The Birds used in Hawking 



OF the numerous birds of prey which are found in various 

 parts of the globe, a good many have been employed in 

 the service of man as agents in the pursuit of other birds and of 

 four-footed animals, partly for purposes of supplying him with 

 food, and partly for sport. It is more than probable that others 

 might be similarly trained and flown, especially some of the 

 American and Australian hawks, which seem suitable for the pur- 

 pose, but which have never yet, as far as we know, been thus 

 taken in hand. It is not, however, proposed to describe at 

 length any members of the large family of Raptores, except 

 such as are known to have been used in hawking ; and with 

 regard to those which have been flown only in remote parts 

 of the world, considerations of space necessitate a very brief 

 reference. 



It has usually been said that the list of birds used in hawk- 

 ing includes only two main divisions — the long-winged hawks, 

 as falconers call them, known to naturalists under the name of 

 " falcons " ; and the short-winged hawks, to which the men of 

 science apply specially the name of hawks. This ornithological 

 classification of falcons on the one hand and hawks on the 

 other, is not a very happy one ; for in the general public esti- 

 mation, as well as in falconers' phraseology, every falcon is a 

 hawk, although every hawk may not be properly called a falcon. 

 The one term is of classic, and the other of Teutonic origin ; and 

 it was too late, when books about birds first began to be written 

 scientifically, to attempt to establish a hard-and-fast difference 

 between words which had already passed current for centuries as 

 meaning pretty much the same thing. Moreover, hawking, which, 

 if the naturalists' view of the matter were accepted, ought to 

 be concerned, like the French autourserie, with the short-winged 

 hawks only, has long been considered in England a mere 



