The Lanner and Salter. 
249 
they were then called interviewed hawks. The term 
cjentil falcon seems to have had a general rather than a 
particular meaning. The bird so called by Pennant is 
certainly a goshawk, while the lanner of this author is a 
young female of the same species. When young the 
peregrine bears some resemblance to the lanner, which 
probably has never been caught in this country. The 
young of the year were called respectively a red falcon, 
and a red tiercel, on account of the ruddy tinge of their 
plumage. The heroner, a name sometimes met with, was 
probably also the peregrine. This hawk is explained by 
Francis Thynne, 1559, as—• 
“ an especiall hawke of the kyndes of longe winged hawkes, of more 
•accompte then other hawkes are, because the fiighte of the herone is 
more dangerous then of other foules.” {Animadversions of Francis 
Thynne , p. 39, ed. Furnivall.) 
The true Lanner was imported from the continent, 
and was trained to fly at the kite. The male Lanner 
was called the lanneret. i " 
Marco Polo frequently speaks of the lanner and the 
saker in his Travels. Of Tartary, he writes :— 
“ In the mountains there are falcons of the species called saker, 
falco sacer , which are excellent birds and of strong flight; as well as 
of that called lanner, falco lanarius. There are also goshawks of a 
perfect kind, falco astus , or jpalumbarius, and sparrow-hawks, falco 
nisus .” 
Of these two birds, the lanner and the saker, the Eev. 
E. Lubbock writes:— 
“ Two speeies of falcon, formerly prized, have been involved in 
much obscurity; the saker, which in size and courage rivalled or 
excelled the gyrfalcon, and the lanner, which came from Sicily, Malta, 
and the South and East. Temminck makes no mention of this last 
species in the edition of 1815. The name lanner seems to have been 
sometimes given to the young of the peregrine falcon, and conse¬ 
quently confusion arose from believing the lanner to be a British bird. 
After dividing the peregrine in different plumage into two or three 
kinds, the old treatises on hawking always add that the birds are 
