03 
Ihe next time wc passed, lie \vas again furnished with a supper, 
and we had not to wait long before ho descended to secure it. 
Ihis being repeated on subsequent evenings, wo began to think 
the bird used to watch for us regularly.” “ ],)id you never try to 
catch him,” I inquired, “and tamo him?” “Xo,” lie reidiod, 
“ ho would never allow us to come near enough to touch him ; the 
nearest approach to familiarity wo over saw was his perching one 
evening on the cadge Avhich the bearer had set dowm, for a few 
minutes, while ho went back to a companion who was lagging 
behind with the hawk’s meat. There ho .sat, amongst the hooded 
falcons, bowing and curtseying all round in the most grotesque 
way, to the amusement of u.s all, until the return of the man with 
the meat, when ho flew back to the tree.” On i-elating this story 
to Mr. Joseph Wolf, he told mo that he could well believe it, for 
he had kept a long-eared owl, which had become remarkalily tame. 
Colonel Wilson, like other falconers, sometimes lost a hawk, and 
did not always recover it. In the same volume of Loudon’s 
‘Magazine of Xatural History,’ above quoted, at page 140, is the 
following note by the late Mr. Hoy, of Stoke Xayland, dated 
20th IMarch, 1830 : — 
“A fine female Peregrine was taken by the warrener of G. Gardiner, Esq., 
of Thetford, on the lutli October, 18-29. The falcon had iirobably 
escaped from Gol. Wilson’s, of Didlington Hall, Norfolk, during the 
hawking season, as its jes.ses were on when taken, and were not much 
worn. The warrener observed the hawk pursuing a Slock Dove witli 
astonishing rapidity over the open part of the warren. The dove to 
evade the stoop of the falcon, darted down to a rabbit burrow ; but so 
close was her pursuer that both were caught in a large trap set for 
rabbits at the entrance of the hole. The bird is now in my 
posses.sion.”* 
I .should like to conclude these notes with the most poetical 
and beautiful description of heron-hawking I have ever read, and 
which I found in one ot the dramas of the great Spanish poet 
Calderon. I have never seen it quoted in any treatise on falconry ; 
it will probably be new to many, and will especially delight those 
who take a jwactical interest in the sport. The passage to which 
I refer occurs in El mat/or cncnnlo amor — “ Love the greatest 
• Probably still preserved in i\Ir. Hoy’s collection of birds at Boyles 
Court, Essex, the residence of bis nephew, Mr. Joseph Lescher. 
