the exercise of taking wild-fowl by means of hawks. The method of reclaiming, managing, and bringing up a hawk to this exercise, is called falconry. See FALCONRY.
There are only two countries in the world where we have any evidence that the exercise of hawking was very anciently in vogue. These are, Thrace and Britain. In the former, it was pursued merely as the diversion of a particular district, if we may believe Pliny*, whose account is rendered obscure by the darkness of his own ideas of the matter. The primitive Britons, with a fondness for the exercise of hunting, had also a taste for that of hawking; and every chief among them maintained a considerable number of birds for that sport. It appears also from a curious passage in the poems of Ossian†, that the same diversion was fashionable at a very early period in Scotland. The poet tells us, that a peace was endeavoured to be gained by the proffer of 100 managed steeds, 100 foreign captives, and "100 hawks with fluttering wings, that fly across the sky." To the Romans this diversion was scarce known in the days of Vespaian; yet it was introduced immediately afterwards. Most probably they adopted it from the Britons; but we certainly know that they greatly improved it by the introduction of spaniels into the island. In this state it appears among the Roman Britons in the fifth century. Gildas, in a remarkable passage in his first epistle, speaks of Maglocunus, on his relinquishing the sphere of ambition, and taking refuge in a monastery; and proverbially compares him to a dove, that hastens away at the noisy approach of the dogs, and with various turns and windings takes her flight from the talons of the hawk.
In after times, hawking was the principal amusement of the English: a person of rank scarce stirred out without his hawk on his hand; which, in old paintings, is the criterion of nobility. Harold, afterwards king of England, when he went on a most important expedition into Normandy, is painted embarking with a bird on his fist, and a dog under his arm: and in an ancient picture of the nuptials of Henry VI., a nobleman is represented in much the same manner; for in those days, it was thought sufficient for a nobleman to winde their horn, and to carry their hawk fair, and leave study and learning to the children of mean people. The former were the accomplishments of the times; Spenser makes his gallant Sir Tristram boast,
Ne is there hawk which mantleth her on pearch, Whether high tow'ring, or accoaling low, But I the measure of her flight doe fear, And all her prey, and all her diet know.
Book vi. canto 2. In short, this diversion was, among the old English, the pride of the rich, and the privilege of the poor; no rank of men seems to have been excluded the amusements; we learn from the book of St Alban's that every degree had its peculiar hawk, from the emperor down to the holy-water clerk. Vain was the expense that sometimes attended this sport. In the reign of James I., Sir Thomas Monton is said to have given 100l. for a cask of hawks: we are not then to wonder at the rigour of the laws that tended to preserve a pleasure that was carried to such an extravagant pitch. In the 34th of Edward III., it was made felony to steal a hawk; to take its eggs, even in a person's own ground, was punishable with imprisonment for a year and a day, besides a fine at the king's pleasure: in Queen Elizabeth's reign, the imprisonment was reduced to three months; but the offender was to find security for his good behaviour for seven years, or lie in prison till he died. Such was the enviable state of the times of old England; during the whole day, the gentry were given to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field; in the evening, they celebrated their exploits with the most abandoned and brutish festivities; at the same time, the inferior ranks of people, by the most unjust and arbitrary laws, were liable to capital punishments, to fines, and loss of liberty, for destroying the most noxious of the feathered tribe.
According to Olearius, the diversion of hawking is more followed by the Tartars and Persians than ever it was in any part of Europe. Il n'y avoit point de hute (says he) qui n'eust fon aigle ou fon faucon.
The falcons or hawks that were in use in these kingdoms, are now found to breed in Wales, and in North Britain and its isles. The peregrine falcon inhabits the rocks of Caernarvonshire. The same species, with the gyrfalcon, the gentil, and the gothawk, are found in Scotland, and the lanner in Ireland.
We may here take notice, that the Norwegian breed was, in old times, in high esteem in England: they were thought bribes worthy a king. Geoffrey Fitzpierre gave two good Norway hawks to King John, to obtain for his friend the liberty of exporting 100 cwt. of cheese; and Nicholas the Dane was to give the king a hawk every time he came into England, that he might have free liberty to traffic throughout the king's dominions.
They were also made the tenures that some of the nobility held their estates by, from the crown. Thus Sir John Stanley had a grant of the Isle of Man from Henry IV., to be held of the king, his heirs, and successors, by homage and the service of two falcons, payable on the day of his or their coronation. And Philip de Halifang held his manor of Combertoun in Cambridgehire, by the service of keeping the king's falcons.
Hawking, though an exercise now much abused among us, in comparison of what it anciently was, does yet furnish a great variety of significant terms, which still obtain in our language. Thus, the parts of a hawk have their proper names.—The legs, from the thigh to the foot, are called arms; the toes, the petty fingers; the claws, the pouncer.—The wings are called the sails; the long feathers thereof, the beams; the two longest, the principal feathers; those next thereto, the flags.—The tail is called the train; the breast-feathers, the mails; those behind, the thigh, the pendant feathers.—When the feathers are not yet full hawking grown, the is said to be unfurred; when they are complete, the is furred.—The pipe next the fundament, where the faces are drawn down, is called the pannel.—The flinty substance lying in the pannel, is called the glut.—The upper and crooked part of the bill, is called the beak; the nether part, the clap; the yellow part between the beak and the eyes, the fear or fere; the two small holes therein, the nare.
As to her furniture:—The leathers, with bells buttoned on her legs, are called bequits.—The leathern thong, whereby the falconer holds the hawk, is called the leaf or leaf; the little straps, by which the leaf is fastened to the legs, jeffis; and a line or pack-thread fastened to the leaf, in disciplining her, a creance.—A cover for her head, to keep her in the dark, is called a hood; a large wide hood, open behind, to be wore at first, is called a rufiter hood: To draw the strings, that the hood may be in readiness to be pulled off, is called unfricking the hood.—The blinding a hawk just taken, by running a thread through her eye-lids, and thus drawing them over the eyes, to prepare her for being hooded, is called feeling.—A figure or resemblance of a fowl, made of leather and feathers, is called a lure.—Her resting-place, when off the falconer's fit, is called the perch.—The place where her meat is laid, is called the hack; and that wherein she is set, while her feathers fall and come again, the mew.
Something given a hawk, to cleanse and purge her gorge, is called cafting.—Small feathers given her to make her caft, are called plumage.—Gravel given her to help to bring down her stomach, is called range: Her throwing up filth from the gorge after cafting, is called gleaming.—The purging of her grease, &c., is gleaming.—A being stuffed is called gurgiting.—The inferting a feather in her wing, in lieu of a broken one, is called imping.—The giving her a leg, wing, or pinion of a fowl to pull at, is called tiring.—The neck of a bird the hawk preys on, is called the inke:—What the hawk leaves of her prey, is called the pill or pelf.
There are also proper terms for her several actions.—When she flutters with her wings, as if striving to get away, either from perch or fit, she is said to bate.—When standing too near they fight with each other, it is called crabbing.—When the young ones quiver, and shake their wings in obedience to the elder, it is called couring.—When she wipes her beak after feeding, she is said to soak:—When she sleeps, she is said to yonk.—From the time of exchanging her coat, till the turn white again, is called her intermewing.—Treading is called cawking: When she stretches one of her wings after her legs, and then the other, it is called mantling.—Her dung is called muting: when she mutes a good way from her, she is said to slice; when she does it directly down, instead of jerking backwards, she is said to flime; and if it be in drops, it is called dropping.—When she as it were sneezes, it is called jutting.—When she raises and shakes herself, she is said to rouze.—When, after mantling, she crosses her wings together over her back, she is said to warble.
When a hawk feizes, she is said to bind:—When after feizing, she pulls off the feathers, she is said to plume.—When she raises a fowl aloft, and at length Hawking, descends with it to the ground, it is called *truffing*.
When being aloft, the descends to strike her prey, it is called *flopping*. When the flies out too far from the game, she is said to *rake*. When, forfaking her proper game, she flies at pyes, crows, &c., that chance to crofs her, it is called *check*. When, missing the fowl, she betakes herfelf to the next check, she is said to *fly on head*. The fowl or game the flies at is called the *quarry*. The dead body of a fowl killed by the hawk, is called a *pelt*. When she flies away with the quarry, she is said to *carry*. When in flopping she turns two or three times on the wing, to recover herfelf ere she feizes, it is called *cancelling*. When she hits the prey, yet does not truls it, it is called *ruff*. The making a hawk tame and gentle, is called *reclaiming*. The bringing her to endure company, *manning* her. An old staunch hawk, ufed to fly and fet example to a young one, is called a *make-hawk*.
The reclaiming, manning, and bringing up a hawk to the fport, is not easy to be brought to any precise fet of rules. It confifts in a number of little practices and obervances, calculated to familiarize the falconer to his bird, to procure the love thereof, &c. See the article *FALCONRY*.
When your hawk comes readily to the lure, a large pair of luring-bells are to be put upon her; and the more giddy-headed and apt to rake out your hawk is, the larger muft the bells be. Having done this, and she being sharp-set, ride out in a fair morning, into fome large field unencumbered with trees or wood, with your hawk on your fift; then having loofened her hood, whiftle softly, to provoke her to fly; unhood her, and let her fly with her head into the wind; for by that means the will be the better able to get upon the wing, and will naturally climb upwards, flying a circle. After she has flown three or four turns, then lure her with your voice, calling the lure about your head, having firft tied a pullet to it; and if your falcon come in and approach near you, call out the lure into the wind, and if the floop to it reward her.
You will often find, that when the flies from the fift, she will take fland on the ground: this is a fault which is very common with four-falcons. To remedy this, fright her up with your wand; and when you have forced her to take a turn or two, take her down to the lure, and feed her. But if this does not do, then you muft have in readinefs a duck fealed, fo that she may fee no way but backwards, and that will make her mount the higher. Hold this duck in your hand, by one of the wings near the body; then lure with the voice, to make the falcon turn her head; and when she is at a reafonable pitch, cast your duck up juft under her; when, if she strike, floop, or trufs the duck, permit her to kill it, and reward her by giving her a reafonable gorge. After you have practifed this two or three times, your hawk will leave the fland, and, delighted to be on the wing, will be very obedient.
It is not convenient, for the firft or fecond time, to show your hawk a large fowl; for it frequently happens, that they efcape from the hawk, and fle, not recovering them, rakes after them: this gives the falconer trouble, and frequently occasions the losfs of the hawk. But if the happens to pursue a fowl, and being unable to recover it, gives it over, and comes in again directly, then cast out a fealed duck; and if fle floop and trufs Hawking, it acrofs the wings, permit her to take her pleafure, rewarding her afio with the heart, brains, tongue, and liver. But if you have not a quick duck, take her down with a dry lure, and let her plume a pullet and feed upon it. By this means a hawk will learn to give over a fowl that rakes out, and on hearing the falconer's lure, will make back again, and know the better how to hold in the head.
Some hawks have a difdainful coynefs, proceeding from their being high fed: fuch a hawk muft not be rewarded though fle fhould kill: but you may give her leave to plume a little; and then taking a thrip's heart cold, or the leg of a pullet, when the hawk is busy in pluming, let either of them be conveyed into the body of the fowl, that it may favour of it; and when the hawk has eaten the heart, brains, and tongue of the fowl, take out what is inclofed, call her to your fift, and feed her with it: afterwards give her fome of the feathers of the fowl's neck, to scour her, and make her caft.
If your hawk be a fately high-flying one, fle ought not to take more than one flight in a morning; and if fle be made for the river, let her not fly more than twice; when fle is at the highest, take her down with your lure; and when fle has plumed and broken the fowl a little, feed her, by which means you will keep her a high-flyer, and fond of the lure.