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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING

CHAPTER I

History and Literature

IT would be easy to fill a large volume with dissertations on the antiquity of the art which is now called Falconry, and with records of its history in different countries during the many centuries that have elapsed since it was first practised. In a treatise on practical hawking, such as the present, there is no room for such matter; and the omission will be the more readily excused when it is explained that only a short time ago the antiquities of the art, and the literature in which its records are embodied, were most carefully and ably explored by Mr. J. E. Harting, the erudite Secretary of the Linnean Society, whose catalogue of books on hawking contains a reference to every known publication on the subject (Bibliotheca Accipitraria, London, 1891). The actual origin of hawking, as of other old sports, is naturally hidden in the obscurity of the far-away past. No one would suppose that it was practised as early in the world’s history as the sister sports of hunting and fishing. But Mr. Harting’s researches have resulted in convincing him that it was known at least as early as 400 B.C., although its introduction into Europe must clearly be placed at a much later date. It is remarkable enough that the Greeks, whose country abounds in wild hawks, should have known nothing of their use in the service of man. Homer, indeed, speaks of the mountain falcon as “the most nimble of birds,” (

ἡὑτε κἱρχος ὁρεσφιν, ἑλαφρὁτατος πετεηνὡν Il. xxii. 139); but Sophocles, in alluding to the triumphs of man in taming and using wild creatures, omits all mention of the training of hawks, which is certainly more worthy of notice than mere bird-catching or the breaking-in of oxen (Soph. Antig. 343). Even the later Roman authors refer to the use of trained hawks as an unfamiliar practice, in vogue only amongst some of the barbarian tribes.

Until at least some centuries after the Christian era, China and other countries in the Far East seem to have been the chief if not the only homes of falconry. But the Lombards, when they settled in North Italy, in the latter half of the sixth century, were acquainted with the art; and before the end of the ninth century it was familiar to the Saxons in England and throughout the West of Europe. Henry the Fowler, who became Emperor in 919, seems to have been so nicknamed on account of his devotion to this form of sport, which was already a favourite with princes and magnates. The Saxon King Ethelbert wrote to the Archbishop of Mayence for hawks able to take cranes. King Harold habitually carried a trained hawk on his fist; and from the time of the Norman Conquest hawking was a sport as