THE HAWK TRIBE. 
145 
they not only returned to their owners when called, 
but brought whatever they might have captured in 
their flight. Some North American Indians under- 
stand the art of taming these birds, and are equally 
fond of the sport ; but it has been remarked, that 
when the hard winters set in, the birds, if not con- 
fined, take wing and are never seen again. In 
China it is a favourite amusement with some of the 
Mandarins, or great people, to hawk for butterflies 
and other large insect^, with birds trained for that 
particular sport. In India, the Goshawk, and two 
other species, are taught to keep hovering over the 
hunters' heads, and when deer or other game starts 
up, they dart down, as has been before stated, and fix 
their claws upon its head, and thus bewilder it, till 
the pursuers come up. 
Near Tripoli, in Africa, on the wide plains, 
Bustards are very common, — a large bird, once plenti- 
ful in some parts of England, though now, in conse- 
quence of the increase of population, and enclosure 
of the waste tracts of land, no longer to be seen ; 
they are larger than Turkeys, and though their 
wings are so short as to be of little use to them in 
flying, they enable them to use their long legs 
with a speed equal to that of a greyhound, and afford 
excellent sport when pursued by Hawks ; and Bus- 
tard-coursing is therefore a favourite amusement 
with persons of rank in that country. Hawking, 
however, to any extent, is, at the present day, 
nothing, compared with what it was a few hundred 
years ago in England, and many parts of Europe, 
when it was followed with an eagerness and a 
degree of expense far beyond the cost of fox-hunting, 
VOL. I. L 
