the exercise of taking wild-fowl by means of hawks. The method of reclaiming, manning, 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 medieval 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 Vespasian; 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 sixth 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 embassy 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 wind 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 accoasting low, But I the measure of her flight doe search, 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 amusement: we learn from the book of St Albans that every degree had its peculiar hawk, from the emperor down to the holy-water clerk. Vast was the expense that sometimes attended this sport. In the reign of James I. Sir Thomas Monson is said to have given 1000l. for a cast 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 did. 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 sottishness; 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 son aigle ou son 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 goshawk, 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 Hastang held his manor of Combertoun in Cambridgeshire, by the service of keeping the king's falcons.

Hawking, though an exercise now much disused 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 singles*; the claws, the *pounces*.—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 grown, she is said to be *unsunned*; when they are complete, she is said to be *summed*.—The crop, or crop, is called the *gorge*.—The pipe next the fundament, where the feces are drawn down, is called the *pannel*.—The slimy 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 *scar* or *serre*; the two small holes therein, the *nares*.

As to her furniture?—The leathers, with bells buttoned on her legs, are called *bewits*.—The leathern thong, whereby the falconer holds the hawk, is called the *lease* or *leash*; the little straps, by which the lease is fastened to the legs, *jessis*: and a line or packthread fastened to the lease, 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 *rufter hood*: To draw the strings, that the hood may be in readiness to be pulled off, is called *unstriking the hood*.—The blinding a hawk just taken, by running a thread through her eyelids, and thus drawing them over the eyes, to prepare her for being hooded, is called *secting*.—A figure or resemblance of a fowl, made of leather and feathers, is called a *lure*.—Her resting-place, when off the falconer's fist, is called the *perch*.—The place where her meat is laid, is called the *hock*; 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 *casting*.—Small feathers given her to make her cast, are called *plumage*.—Gravel given her to help to bring down her stomach, is called *range*: Her throwing up filth from the gorge after casting, is called *gleaming*.—The purging of her grease, &c., *eneceming*.—A being stuffed is called *gurgzing*.—The inserting 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 *peff*.

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 fist, 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 *cowring*.—When she wipes her beak after feeding, she is said to *feak*.—When she sleeps, she is said to *jouk*.—From the time of exchanging her coat, till she turn white again, is called her *intermeuing*.—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 *slime*; and if it be in drops, it is called *dropping*.—When she as it were sneezes, it is called *sniting*.—When she raises and shakes herself, she is said to *rouse*.—When, after mantling, she crosses her wings together over her back, she is said to *swarble*.

When a hawk seizes, she is said to *bind*.—When after seizing, she pull off the feathers, she is said to *plume*.—When she raises a fowl aloft, and at length descend, Hawking descends with it to the ground; it is called trussing.—When, being aloft, she descends to strike her prey, it is called stooping.—When she flies out too far from the game, she is said to rake.—When, forsaking her proper game, she flies at pyes, crows, &c., that chance to cross her, it is called check.—When, missing the fowl, she betakes herself to the next check, she is said to fly on head.—The fowl or game she 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 stooping she turns two or three times on the wing, to recover herself ere she seizes, it is called canceling.—When she hits the prey, yet does not truss 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, used to fly and set example to a young one, is called a make-hawk.

The reclaiming, manning, and bringing up a hawk to the sport, is not easy to be brought to any precise set of rules.—It consists in a number of little practices and observances, 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 must the bells be. Having done this, and she being sharp-set, ride out in a fair morning, into some large field unencumbered with trees or wood, with your hawk on your fist; then having loosened her hood, whistle softly, to provoke her to fly; unhood her, and let her fly with her head into the wind; for by that means she 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, casting the lure about your head, having first tied a pullet to it; and if your falcon come in and approach near you, cast out the lure into the wind, and if she stoop to it reward her.

You will often find, that when she flies from the fist, she will take stand on the ground: this is a fault which is very common with soar-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 must have in readiness a duck sealed, so that she may see 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 reasonable pitch, cast your duck up just under her; when, if she strike, stoop, or truss the duck, permit her to kill it, and reward her by giving her a reasonable gorge. After you have practised this two or three times, your hawk will leave the stand, and, delighted to be on the wing, will be very obedient.

It is not convenient, for the first or second time, to show your hawk a large fowl; for it frequently happens, that they escape from the hawk, and she, not recovering them, rakes after them: this gives the falconer trouble, and frequently occasions the loss of the hawk. But if she happens to pursue a fowl, and being unable to recover it, gives it over, and comes in again direct-

ly, then cast out a sealed duck; and if she stoop and truss it across the wings, permit her to take her pleasure, rewarding her also 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 disdainful coyness, proceeding from their being high fed: such a hawk must not be rewarded though she should kill: but you may give her leave to plume a little; and then taking a sheep'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 savour of it; and when the hawk has eaten the heart, brains, and tongue of the fowl, take out what is inclosed, call her to your fist, and feed her with it: afterwards give her some of the feathers of the fowl's neck, to scour her, and make her cast.

If your hawk be a stately high-flying one, she ought not to take more than one flight in a morning; and if she be made for the river, let her not fly more than twice: when she is at the highest, take her down with your lure; and when she has plumbed and broken the fowl a little, feed her, by which means you will keep her a high-flyer, and fond of the lure.