90 
and hills, of England and Wales, with figures of nymphs or 
Shephards at them.” 
Drayton particularly mentions the junction of the Little Ouse 
or Brandon river, with the Thet, and refers to Thetford as a place 
“ much esteem’d ” by falconers in his day. 
“ Where since these confluent floods, so fit for hawking lye, 
And store of fowl intice skill’d falconers there to fly.” 
His description of “ a flight at brook,” near Thetford, towards 
the end of Song xx., is so animated, and furnishes so good a 
picture of hawking as practised in his day in Norfolk, that want 
of space alone prevents my quoting it in its entirety. 
Professor Newton fhc. cit) has given some account of the 
third Lord Orford who, between the years 1751 and 1791, did 
so much to encourage the practice of falconry in England.’ I 
may supplement his remarks by relating an anecdote of this 
nobleman which I found in a scarce volume entitled ‘Essays 
by a Society of Gentlemen at Exeter, 1796’. The statements 
made are not as precise as could be wished, but having been 
written so near the date of the occurrence referred to, are most 
likely true enough. 
“ On one occasion he took a heron after a long flight and after piittiiw 
a ring on its leg ivith E. Orford and tlie date engraven upon it, 
gave it its liberty. About 10 years after he received a letter en- 
closing the same ring from the Imperial Ambassador who informed 
Ills lordship that the Emperor* had taken it from the leg of a heron 
ivhich his hawks had killed ; and seeing E. Orford upon it, and 
observing the date, had sent it to the Earl by his ambassador as 
a great curiosity. The ring was much bruised & discoloured, 
but the inscription perfect.” 
There is nothing impiobable in this stoiy, which I’eceives con. 
rmation from the testimony of other and more recent authorities,! 
and I have been assured by the Dutch falconer, Adrian Mollen, 
that he once took a heron with a passage-hawk in Holland whicli 
had a ring upon its leg which showed that some years previously 
* Presumably the Emperor of Germany, either Francis I. n745— 176')^ 
or Joseph II. (1765—1790). ' 
t See Pennant, ‘British Zoology,’ vol. ii. (p. 42) ; Salvin and Brodrick 
Falconry m the British Isles’ (p. 81) ; and Campanyo ‘ Ilistoire Naturcllc 
du Departement des Pyrenees Orientales, 1863’ (p. 225.) 
