FALCONRY

The origin of this celebrated sport has given occasion to much controversy. It has been said that it was unknown to the Greeks; it is, however, described h^ Ctesias and Aristotle as practised in their time in India and Thrace. Martial and Apuleius present us with plain indications of the knowledge of this pastime among the Romans. In modern Europe, it appears to have been practised earliest, or at least with most ardour, in Germany: the title of the emperor, Henry the Fowler (a.d. 920), is said to be derived from an anecdote respecting his fondne for it. In the 12th century, it was the favourite sport of nobles and knights throughout Europe; and in that which followed its rules were reduced into a system by the Emperor Frederic II. (Barb a ro a), and by Demetrius, physician to the Greek Emperor Pala?ologus. In that court the grand falconer was an officer of distinction; and the title was borrowed from it by the western sovereigns. According to the opinion of Strutt, the sport was not known so early in England as on the Continent; yet there are traces of it as early as the 8th century. From the commencement of the 17th, we may date its gradual decline. James I., devoted to hunting, was no admirer of falconry, which up to his time had been the favourite royal sport. But its final abandonment, except as the fancy of a few individuals, was owing to the gradual improvement in firearms presenting far easier methods of obtaining game. Among the many curious works which exist on this subject, once so universally interesting, maybe mentioned the treatise F>e la Fauconnesie of Charles d' Esperon, Paris, 1605; the celebrated Book qf St. Alban's, by the Priore Julian i Berners, 148G; Latham on Falconry, 1658; Ray's Idea of Falconry, published with Willoughby's Ornithology. The Emperor Frederic II. (Barb a ro a) did not disdain to give the world the results of his experience in the art, in a treatise published in 1596 from his MS., under the title Rcliqtm libroru?n Fred eric i 11. Imp. de arte vcnandi cum avibus [s. 451]