MK. T. J. MANN ON HAWKS. 
651 
Falconer to the Old Hawking Club, whose head-quarters are in the 
Xew Forest. The Hawk most prized is the female Peregrine (the 
Falcon), but the male (the Tiercel), the Goshawks and Merlins are 
also taken at the huts. The Falcons are mostly used for Hook 
Hawking in the following spring, and are also flown at Grouse in 
.‘Vugnst. As a rule, excellence in particular branches of sport is 
handed down from man to man, or from father to son, and this is 
especially noticeable in Falconry, for the Falconers who work the 
huts at Valkenswaard, are, I believe, the Mollen family, sons of 
Adrien Mollen, who was assistant to the celebrated “ Jean B<>fx ” 
from 183.3-.3G, when there were as many as eighteen Falconers 
resident at Valkenswaard, and thirty huts erected in the migration 
period. The celebrated Lnn (Vnh was established in 1841, and in 
18-42 this Mollen became its heatl Falconer, ^fr. Edward Clough 
Mewcome, a well-known Norfolk man, wa-s a member of this club. 
Tn Livermore Magna churchyard in Suffolk, there is a tombstone 
with an inscription of which the following coj)y has been kindly 
sent me by ^lichael Frost, the father of my present Falconer, 
Alfred Frost : 
" Hero lieth ye body of 
Milliiun Sakings, 
he died ye IGth March, 1(589, 
he was Forkiier to King Charles 
ye 1st, King Cliarles ye 2nd, King 
.Tames ye 2nd, 
.‘Vged 78 years.” 
I will now proceed to descril>e the method by which the Hawks 
are taken ; and to enable you the more readily to realize the descrip- 
tion, I have had a model constructed, as far as possible, on a small 
scale, which you see here, from the description in ‘Essays on 
Sport and Natural History’ by J. E. Harting, and from personal 
notes sent me by John Frost. 
The great plain of Valkenswaard is situate in the southern part 
of the district of North Brabant in Holland, and has an approximate 
area of twelve miles by three. The huts in which the Falconers 
conceal themselves to await the passage of the migi-ants are mound- 
like in formation, being about five feet in diameter at the base, and 
four feet high, gradually narrowing from the base upwards. The walls 
are constructed with sods of heather dug from the plain. A disused 
cartwheel supported on stakes built into the wall forms the frame- 
VOL. IV. 
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