exemplify the phraseology of its unknown author. The history and disputed authorship of the almost equally rare Livre du Roi Modus is examined (pp. 61-66). The celebrated Spanish treatise on Falconry by the Prince Don Juan Manuel is epitomised (pp. 113-115), as is also that of the famous work of Martinez de Espinar. An epitome is furnished (pp. 169-172) of the Latin work of the Emperor Frederick II., De Arte Venandi cum Avibus (1245), and of the Greek work of Demetrius of Constantinople, written in 1270 (pp. 181-183); while in the case of the Russian books catalogued, half-adozen in number, a transliteration of the titles follows the original, and is succeeded by an abstract of the contents.

I can claim no acquaintance, I regret to say, with Oriental languages, but by means of French and German translations, and with the assistance of friends well versed in the matter, I have been able to give an account of most, if not all, of the treatises on Falconry which are worth quoting in Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. It may be observed that many of these are in MS., and there is perhaps little likelihood of their being published. Strictly speaking, as manuscripts, they ought not to have been included in the present Catalogue; but to have omitted all mention of them would have been to pass over some important sources of information, while by directing attention to their existence, opportunity is afforded to the reader of judging the extent of Oriental literature on this particular branch of sport.

To Mr. Sydney A. J. Churchill, of the Persian Legation, I am indebted for much kind assistance in regard to the Persian and Arabic titles, and the fact that the proof-sheets of this portion of the Bibliotheca Accipitraria have been revised by the eminent Orientalist, Dr. Rieu, of the British Museum, gives it an imprimatur without which it could not be expected to find favour in the eyes of critics. As regards the Chinese and Japanese titles, I am under great obligation to Mr. F. V. Dickins, Assistant Registrar of the University of London, whose knowledge of these languages has enabled him to give most valuable assistance.

Altogether, there are catalogued 378 titles in nineteen languages. The way in which they are apportioned will be seen on

reference to the following table, which also shows the important additions which have been made to the catalogue published by Schlegel :

On examining the titles of all these works, two things are particularly striking-first, the great antiquity of Falconry; and secondly, its widespread practice.

The origin of the art it is now impossible to discover. From the earliest times of which history takes cognizance people of all nations, but more particularly those of Eastern origin, have practised the sport, and we may form some idea of its antiquity from Sir Henry Layard's discovery of a basrelief amongst the ruins of Khorsabad, in which a falconer is represented carrying a hawk upon his fist. From this he has inferred that hawking was practised there some 1700 years before the Christian era.

In China it was known even at an earlier date than this,

for in a Japanese work (No. 376), of which a French translation appeared at the beginning of the present century, it is stated that falcons were amongst the presents made to princes in the time of the Hia dynasty, which is supposed to have commenced in the year 2205 B.C.

It would carry me far beyond the limits of this Introduction were I to attempt to trace here the history and progress of Falconry, although the necessary materials are at hand in the works which I have catalogued. On this part of the subject a second volume might be written. Suffice it to remark, that the sport was introduced into Europe from the East, and that there is reason to believe that Hawking was practised by Europeans at least three centuries before the Christian era.*

It is remarkable how on almost every point the falconers of the East and West are agreed. Although the communication between them has been interrupted for centuries, their general system of treatment, and the many ingenious contrivances, either discovered or handed down from posterity, are very similar. Both make use of jesses, leashes, bells, and hoods, varying only in pattern and material. They imp broken flightfeathers in the same way, and both bathe and weather their hawks, feed and give castings, in the same manner.

This alone would prove the ancient origin of Falconry, which appears to have had but one source, and probably to have been introduced by the Indo-Germanic race from the plains of Hindostan, so favourable to Hawking.

On looking into the history of Falconry in Europe, one figure of a great falconer in the Middle Ages stands out prominently—namely, the Emperor Frederick II. of Germany, who died in 1250. He had seen something of Hawking in the East, and in 1239, on his return from a Crusade which he had undertaken the year before, when he was crowned King of Jerusalem and Sicily, he brought with him from Syria and Arabia several expert falconers with their hawks, and spent much of his leisure time in learning from them the secrets of their art, which he considered the noblest and most worthy of all the arts. The excellent treatise which he composed in

* See No. 79 of this Catalogue, p. 69.

Latin, De Arte Venandi cum Avibus, was the first which appeared in the West, and is still one of the best which exists. It has been translated into German by Pacius (No. 101), and its marked influence on the literature of the subject is perceptible on examining the subsequently published treatises of the French author Tardif and our English Turbervile.

In the Middle Ages the Germans were great falconers; so also were the French, and the natives of Brabant, of whom a celebrated Spanish falconer in 1325 wrote that they were the best falconers in the world. To a less extent the art was practised in Spain and Italy during many centuries, and books were written in all these countries by those who had become proficient in the art, and were fired by the enthusiam of their success. The Kings of Norway and Denmark preferred hunting to hawking, but rendered good service to the sister sport by procuring, from various parts of Scandinavia, the celebrated jerfalcons of Northern Europe, which were held in the highest esteem by those to whom they were sent as presents.

Although the precise date of the introduction of Hawking into England cannot now be ascertained, we know from several sources that it was practised by our ancestors in early Saxon times. In a letter addressed by King Ethelbert (A.D. 748-760) to Boniface, Archbishop of Mayence, who died in 755, the monarch asked him to send over two falcons that would do to fly at the crane, for, said he, "there are very few birds of use for that flight in this country"-i.e., in Kent. Asser, in his Life of Alfred the Great, particularly refers to the king's love of hawking; and William of Malmesbury records much the same of Athelstan, who procured his hawks from Wales. The same historian says of Edward the Confessor that his chief delight was to follow a pack of swift hounds and cheer them with his voice, or to attend the flight of hawks taught to pursue and catch their kindred birds.

So general, indeed, was the pastime of Hawking in Saxon times, that the monks of Abingdon found it necessary in 821 to procure a charter from King Kenulph to restrain the practice in harvest-time, in order to prevent their crops from being trampled upon. (Dugdale, Monasticon, i. p. 100.)

XV

One of the most interesting pieces of documentary evidence on this part of the subject is deposited in the MS. Department of the British Museum. I refer to the Colloquy of Archbishop Ælfric, a composition of the tenth century. object of this and similar colloquies and vocabularies compiled The about the same period was to interpret Latin to the AngloSaxon student, and furnish him with the Latin, words for the common objects of life. In this MS. we find a dialogue between a scholar and a falconer, in which the latter imparts some interesting details on the subject of his art as then practised.*

Hawking was pursued by many of our early kings with the greatest enthusiasm, and some reference to their doings will be found in No. 79 of this Catalogue, which contains (pp. 71-85) many details of interest serving to illustrate the history of Falconry in England.

Henry VIII.'s love of Hawking may be inferred from the anecdote related of him in Hall's "Chronicle," to the effect that, being one day out hawking at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, he was leaping a dyke with a hawking-pole, when it suddenly broke, and the king was immersed in mud and water, and might have lost his life had not Edmund Moody, one of the attendants, come to his assistance. (Chronicle 1548, fol. 130 verso.)

A portrait of his chief falconer, Robert Cheseman, from the painting by Holbein in the Royal Gallery at The Hague, will be found amongst the illustrations to the present work.†

A representation is also given (see the frontispiece) of Sir Ralph Sadler, the Grand Falconer to Queen Elizabeth, in whose reign Hawking was much in vogue. from an old panel-portrait by Gerhardt which hangs in the It is reproduced Manor House at Everley, Wilts, the former residence of

* This dialogue will be found printed in the Introduction to No. 81.

+ It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that the royal hawks were removed from the Mews at Charing Cross (where they had been kept during many reigns), and the place was converted into stables. The name, however, confirmed by long usage, remained to the building, although after the hawks were withdrawn it became inapplicable. But what is more curious still, in later times, when the people of London began to build stabling at the back of their houses, they christened those places “mews" after the old stabling at Charing Cross.