247 
The Peregrine . 
Of Peregrines, Camden writes:— 
“ A noble kind of falcons have their airies here [Pembrokeshire] and 
breed in the rocks, which King Henry the Second, as the 
same Giraldus writeth, was wont to prefer before all Peregrine, 
others. For of that kind are those, if the inhabitants 
doe not deceive mee, which the skilful faulconers call peregrines; for 
they have, that I may use no other wordes than the verses of Augustus 
Thuanus Esmerius, that most excellent poet of our age, in that golden 
booke entituled Hieracasophioy ;— 
t 
“ Head flat and low, the plume in rewes along 
The body laid: legges pale and wan are found. 
With sclender clawes and talons there among 
And those wide spred: the bill is hooked round.” 
Marco Polo mentions peregrines as numerous in 
Siberia :•— 
“ When the Grand Khan is desirous of having a brood of peregrine 
falcons he sends to capture them at this place; and in an island lying- 
off the coast, gerfalcons are found in such numbers that his majesty 
may be supplied with as many of them as he pleases.” ( Travels, 
p. 221.) 
The female peregrine alone was dignified with the name 
of falcon, the male being known as the tiercel, or tassel. 
The falcon was flown at herons and rooks, and the tiercel 
at partridges or magpies. Izaak Walton begins the first 
chapter of his Complete Angler by a conference between an 
angler, a falconer, and a hunter, each commending his own 
recreation. The falconer, after dwelling on the advan¬ 
tages of hawking as an amusement, proceeds to enumerate 
the various species of hawks, which he divides into noble 
and ignoble birds. He says:— 
“ You are to note that they are usually distinguished into two 
kinds; namely, the long-winged, and the short-winged hawks: of the 
first kind; there be chiefly in use amongst us in this nation— 
The gerfalcon and jerkin. 
The falcon and tassel gentle, 
