THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THIRD SERIES. 

 Vol. XV.] MAY, 1891. [No. J 73, 



A JAPANESE TREATISE ON FALCONRY. 

 Translated by F. V. Dicktns. 



In compliance with your request that I would furnish you 

 with a translation of a Japanese precis of Falconry, forwarded 

 for examination by M. Pierre A. Pichot, of Paris, I have much 

 pleasure in sending you the following account of it. 



It may be described as a "broadside," being printed on a 

 single sheet, which measures 20*5 by 14'5 inches, and is illus- 

 trated, in colours, with figures of the Goshawk (O-taka), the 

 Peregrine (Haya busa), and the Sparrowhawk (Hai-taka), and of 

 various appliances used by falconers. It is entitled " Taka gari 

 ichiran, or a Survey of Falconry, illustrated; compiled by 

 Machida Hisanari, in the 9th year of Meiji" — i.e. of the present 

 era, which commenced in 1868. It is therefore quite a modern 

 composition. 



We learned the art of training falcons, says this writer, from 

 Kudara, or Hakusai (one of the kingdoms of Chosen, or Korea), 

 during the reign of the 17th emperor, the Tenno (Celestial 

 Monarch) Nintoku. In the 43rd year of that reign a man named 

 Yozami no Miyake no Abiko (a bizarre name, the meaning of 

 which is uncertain — yozami is so written as to indicate a night- 

 fisherman) caught a strange bird in a net and presented it to the 

 Court. No one could tell its name, but on its being shown to a man 

 of Kudara named Sake-noki (another bizarre name, so written as 

 to mean " rice-beer bibber," or perhaps "rice-beer merchant"), he 

 said that in his country men called the bird Kuchi. It was put 



ZOOLOGIST. — MAY, 1891. O 



