Hawking or Falconry (History of Falconry Series)

Richard Blome

Description

Originally called "Hawking or Faulconry", this title was originally published in 1686 as part of the author's classic work - "The Gentleman's Recreation.", and is now considered an important milestone in the early history of Falconry. This is a fascinating read for any Falconry enthusiast or historian, but also contains much information that is still useful and practical today. Containing twenty five detailed chapters: - Directions for Taking Hawks. - Of the Several Sorts of Hawks. - The Gerfaulcon. - The Slight Faulcon. - The Lanner. - The Merlin. - The Hobby. - The Bawrel. - The Castrel. - The Goshawk. - The Sparrow Hawk. - Reclaiming the Haggard-Faulcon. - Enseaming a Faulcon. - Bathing a Hawk. - Making a Hawk Bold and Hardy. - Feeding. - Hern Hawking. - Brook Hawking. - Rules for the Mew. - Falconers Rules. - Falconry Terms. - Diseases and Cures. - Choice and Use of Spaniels. - Certain Terms of Art. - Hawking Statutes. Etc. Also incorporated in the contents is a thirty two page preface with notes on the history of this, and other important falconry books.

Sujets

• Sports
• Recreation
• Hunting

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 10 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781447487722
• Langue: English

Extrait

HAWKING OR FAULCONRY
by
Richard Blome
Read Country Books Home Farm 44 Evesham Road Cookhill, Alcester Warwickshire B49 5LJ
www.readcountrybooks.com
Read Books 2005 This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
ISBN No. 1-905124-95-3
Published by Read Country Books 2005
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read Country Books Home Farm 44 Evesham Road Cookhill, Alcester Warwickshire B49 5LJ
HAWKING OR FAULCONRY
HAWKING
OR
FAULCONRY
By
RICHARD BLOME
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
Contents
Preface
Several directions for taking HAWKS, as also other Birds, with an OWL, or HORN-COOT.
Hawking and Faulconry
Chap. I. The Introduction.
Chap. II. Of the Several Sorts of Hawks.
Chap. III. The Gerfaulcon.
Chap. IV. Of the Faulcon, or Slight Faulcon.
Chap. V. The Lanner.
Chap.VI. The Merlin.
Chap. VII. The Hobby.
Chap. VIII. The Bawrel.
Chap. IX. The Castrel.
Chap. X. The Goshawk.
Chap. XI. The Sparrow-Hawk.
Chap. XII. Rules for Reclaiming the Haggard-Faulcon, with Instructions to Enter her to the Lure; Which Directions Will Serve for All Long Winged Hawks Except the Merlin.
Chap. XIII. How to Enseame a Faulcon with Her Castings and Scowrings.
Chap. XIV. Rules for Bathing a Hawk.
Chap. XV. To Make a Hawk Bold and Hardy C.
Chap. XVI. Directions for Feeding your Hawk.
Chap. XVII. Hern Hawking.
Chap. XVIII. Brook Hawking.
Chap. XIX. Rules for Ordering Hawks in the Mew.
Chap. XX. Necessary Rules for a Falconer to Observe.
Chap. XXI. Terms of Art in Falconry.
Chap. XXII. Concerning the Diseases of Hawks, with Proper Cures for the Same.
Chap. XXIII. Concerning the Choice and Use of Spaniels, their Qualities, Diseases, C., with Their Cures.
Chap. XXIV. Certain terms of Art Used in Falconry, with An Explanation Thereof, Alphabetically Set Down.
Chap. XXV. An Abstract of the Statutes Relating to Hawking.
Preface.
LITTLE is known of Richard Blome, compiler of The Gentleman s Recreation. The fact that be left legacies for the poor of Harlington suggests that he was a native of one of the four villages of that name; probably that in Middlesex or Bedfordshire. We know that be dwelt and carried on his business in the parish of St. Martin s-in-the-Fields; that he was the compiler, or editor, and publisher of various books, having turned to this multiple career from that of a ruler of paper ; and that he was not himself a sportsman. Anthony Wood s authority for the statement that Blome made his living by bold practices was the chiefest Herald , Sir William Dugdale. Those bold practices consisted of employing necessitous persons to write on various arts, and obtaining contributions from noblemen; which practices, if bold, do not appear very reprehensible, and have survived without reproach to our own day. Perhaps the old Garter King at Arms regarded Blome askance as a poacher on his preserve-Heraldry; for among the works issued by him were sundry writings on that once absorbing subject .
Whatever Sir William s opinion of the doings of Blome, the bold practices of that worthy yielded valuable results; for he succeeded in securing the patronage of King Charles II for the second Part of his Gentleman s Recreation while the book was yet in the making. The King would have bestowed his patronage willingly, inasmuch as the aforesaid Second Part, portions of which are set out in the following pages, deal with Hawking, Hunting, Horsemanship, Fowling, Fishing and Cock-Fighting; in some of which sports His Majesty delighted. Thus it was that Blome was enabled to preface his handsome folio with the Royal Announcement, dated 14 February 1683, to effect that the King declared his Approbation of the undertaking; and out of his Princely desire to promote all such useful and commendable works, and the better to embolden the compiler to complete this volume His Majesty-commended him to subscribers. It seems rather a flat conclusion to a promising exordium, but it was no small thing to have obtained the countenance of the Throne in whatever shape. The basis of this Second Part was, says Blome, a translation from a French work entitled Le Ruises Innocent [sic], that having been recommended as the best extant in any language. Having obtained the translation his next step was to collect all our English authors of the said subjects: . . . . as Turberville, Markham c . ( that c . covers a good many books ), and have their work rectified by such Sports Men as were approved Excellent ; which required no less than four years. There were difficulties to overcome; some of those Sports Men be found expert in Hawking and deficient in the rest that their genius was not addicted to; as some were for short-winged hawks, as the Goshawk, c., not regarding the Long-winged ones as the Gerfalcon, c. which to others were in the highest esteem . Lacking practical knowledge, Blome could not know the reason for this difference of opinion. The short-winged hawks were used where woods and scrub abounded; the long-winged for open, or, as our ancestors called it , champain country. The former, called hawks of the fist , are flown from the hand straight at the quarry: the latter, called hawks of the lure , are trained to wait on above the head of the falconer in their place or gate , till the dogs put up game, when the falcon makes her stoop. The method of killing differs in the two classes; the short-winged hawk grasps its quarry and kills with the beak on the ground; the long-winged kills it in flight with a stroke of the sharp hind talon. So deadly is this stroke that Colonel Thornton states that he has seen a snipe cut clean in two by a peregrine, the halves falling separately. Thus it was that the old Welsh law made the falcon one of the three creatures whose foot and life are of the same worth ; the horse and greyhound being the other two.
Seemingly none of his contributors thought to explain this difference between short- and long-winged hawks to the puzzled editor. However, the work was completed at last, and appeared in 1686 ; to arrive in the fullness of time at the dignity of a classic; a second edition was published in 1710, five years after Blome s death .
The first portion of this book is reprinted from the section on Fowling, and is reproduced as being germane to the art subsequently treated. Apart from the intrinsic interest of the subject, the writer unconsciously shows us how numerous in his time were the birds of prey. A man might wait a very long time nowadays ere he saw five or six adult hawks of any species on one tree! A seventeenth-century observer evidently regarded such a sight as a matter of course; incidentally, the observer who wrote this section possessed a very keen eye for bird habit .
Blome-we must deal with him as though he were author, ignorant as we are of the identity of the Sports Man who actually wrote this section of the book-possibly knew that Falconry is the oldest sport known to man, and the one most widely followed throughout the Old World. Colonel Delm Radcliffe, in his Encyclop dia Britannica article, says hawking was practised in China , 2,000 years B.C . Sir Austen Layard (Discoveries at Nineveh and Babylon) mentions a bas-relief found at Khorsabad, representing, he believed, a falconer with hawk on fist; which sculpture he attributed to about 1700 B.C . Persia claims to be the country in which hawks were first tamed and trained, but whether the Arabic writers quoted by the Late Mr. J. E. Harting in his Hints on Hawks are right in their contention must remain an open question. Blome, it should be said, errs when he says that Aristotle and Pliny make no mention of hawking. Falconry of a sort was practised by the ancient Greeks, witness that passage in Aristotle s Historia Animalium, which thus describes it as followed in Thrace: In the district sometimes called that of Cedrepolis men hunt for little birds in the marshes with the aid of hawks. The men with sticks go beating at the reeds and brush-wood to frighten the birds out, and the hawks show themselves and frighten them down. The men then strike them with their sticks and capture them. They give a portion of their booty to the hawks; that is they throw some of the birds up in the air and the hawks catch them . It is not quite clear from this that the hawks were birds trained for the purpose, but the reliance placed on them by the beaters suggests it. The Romans certainly had knowledge of the sport: it is true that the Elder Pliny only quotes Aristotle, but Martial s Epigram ( No. CCXVI ) suffices: He ( the hawk ) used to prey upon birds, now he is the servant of the bird-catcher and deceives birds, repining that they are not caught for himself .
The identity of the hawks mentioned by the old writers has been a fruitful source of speculation; as Professor Alfred Newton aptly remarks , the nomenclature is extremely confused and the attempt to unravel it would hardly repay the trouble . Blome provides a conundrum of this sort at the outset, including among the hawks used in England the Bawrel and Bawret . It is only conjecture, but I suggest that this may mean Falco Islandus, bawrel assumed to be a corruption of the French boreal ; the Iceland falcon might well be called the northern hawk .
When, or by whom, falconry was introduced into this country it is impossible to say. Pennant says it cannot be traced back to a period earlier than that of Ethelred (866-871) ; Asser, in his Life of King Alfred, under date 884, says the King . . . continued to carry on the government and to exercise hunting in all its branches, to teach . . . his falconers, hawkers and dog-keepers . Mr. Harting cites the similarity between the systems of treatment and the appliances used in Asiatic countries of old, and the more recent West for proof that the art of