242 The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeare’s Time . 
order to pursue the game along the hanks of the river. It must he 
understood that he does not keep all this body of men together in one 
place, but divides them into several parties of one or two hundred or 
more, who follow the sport in various directions, and the greater part 
of what they take is brought to his majesty.” ( Travels , p. 342, ed. 
Marsden, 1817.) 
The falconers were provided with calls and hoods, in 
orthodox fashion, and each hawk belonging to his Majesty, 
or to his nobles, had a silver label attached to its leg, by 
which, if lost, it could be readily identified—a refinement 
only occasionally adopted in Europe. Supposing the 
author was not exaggerating, we can easily imagine that, 
conducted on such a grand scale, hawking in Chinese Tar¬ 
tary was “ unrivalled by any other amusement in the 
whole world.” 
In such honour was falconry held in old times, that in 
Wales the Master of the Hawks was the fourth officer in 
rank and dignity, and sat in the fourth place from his 
sovereign at the royal table. This promotion had, how¬ 
ever, one drawback—the falconer was only permitted to 
drink three times lest he should neglect his birds. When 
he was more than usually successful in his sports the 
prince was obliged, by law and custom, to rise up to 
receive him as he entered the hall, and sometimes to hold 
his stirrup as he alighted from his horse. 
Robert Burton tells us (Anatomy of Melancholy , vol. 
i. p. 528) that at the time in which he writes, about the 
year 1617— 
“ the ordinary sports which are used abroad, are hawking, hunting. . . . 
Paulus Jovius ( Descr . Brit.) doth in some sort tax our English nobility 
for it, for living in the country so much, and too frequent use of it, as 
if they had no other means but hawking and hunting to approve 
themselves gentlemen with. Hawking comes neer to hunting, the one 
in the aire, as the other on the earth, a sport as much affected as the 
other, by some preferred. It was never heard of amongst the Romans, 
invented some 1200 years since, and first mentioned by Firmicus (lib. 
5, cap. 8). The Greek emperours began it, and now nothing so fre- 
