no 
falconers was entirely professional ; they took 
a pleasure in the use of technical phrases pe- 
culiar to the art, and which, to all but them- 
selves, formed a jargon of novel and obscure 
terms. Goldsmith has extracted a specimen 
of instructions, delivered by Willughby, by 
which the reader will be enabled to judge of 
the truth of these observations. He bids us 
" draw our Falcon out of the mews, twenty 
days before we enseam her. If she truss and 
carry, the remedy is to cosse her talons, her 
powse and petty single." In such mysteri- 
ous and cant phrases did our forefathers wrap 
their knowledge of a profession which is now 
nearly fallen into disuse. 
The Roman jurisprudence, which in this 
point looked only to the manners of the first 
ages, established it as a law, that, as the na- 
tural right of things which have no master 
belongs to the first possessor, wild beasts, birds, 
and fishes, were the property of whosoever 
could first take them. But the Northern 
barbarians, who overran the Roman Empire, 
and carried with them all the institutions of 
feudalism, and the strongest relish for the 
sports, of the field, soon circumscribed these 
