80 FALCONRY. 
` were trained to swoop at wolves, and such was their strength 
that none, however large, could escape from their talons." 
The accounts given by Father Rubruquis and Marco Polo 
would seem incredible were not their statements fully con- 
firmed by other writers. The description given by Johnson 
of the number and magnificence of the hunting retinue of 
the Nabob-vizir of Lucknow makes it nearly, if not quite, 
equal to that of the Emperor of Tartary and China as de- 
scribed above. 
The Persians, on some occasions when hunting hares and 
other four legged animals, dress their hawks with leather 
breeches. I will give the language of Sir John Malcolm 
respecting it. “When at Shiraz the Elchee had received a 
present of a very fine Shah-Baz or royal falcon. Before go- 
ing out I had heen amused at seeing Nutee Beg, our head- 
faleoner, a man of great experience in his department, put 
upon this bird a pair of leathers which he fitted to its thighs 
with as much care as if he had been the tailor of a fashion- 
able horseman. I inquired the reason of so unusual a pro- 
ceeding. ‘You will learn that,’ said the consequential master 
of the hawks, ‘when your see our sport;’ and I was con- 
vinced at the period he predicted of the old fellow’s knowl- 
edge of his business.” 
“The first hare seized by the falcon was very strong, and 
the ground rough. While the bird kept the claws of one 
foot fastened in the back of his prey, the other was dragged 
along the ground till it had an opportunity to lay hold of a 
tuft of grass, by which it was enabled to stop the course of 
the hare, whose efforts to escape I do think, would have 
torn the hawk asunder if it had not been provided with the 
leathern defences which have been mentioned.” 
The account given by Marco of the training of eagles for 
the chase is fully substantiated by a later writer, Thomas 
Witlam Atkinson. The following account of hunting with 
the eagle in Chinese Tartary is related by him in his “Seven 
Years Explorations and Adventures in Siberia, Mongolia, the 
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