THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
217
Art, which I maintain to be the most healthful, harmless, and pleasure-giving
of all our national field recreations.
I will end with a quotation from a poet's conception, in the first King Charles
time, of this sport of kings :—
"Ours is the sky
Where, at what fowl we please,
Our hawks shall fly."
GLOSSARY OF FALCONER'S TERMS USED BY MR. MANN.
Cast.—A pair of hawks.
Come to.—To begin obeying the fal-
coner.
Crab.—Hawks seizing each other.
Eyess.— A nestling hawk.
Eyry.—The breeding place.
Foot.—To clutch ; a hawk is said to be
a good "footer."
Get in.—To go up to the hawk after it
has killed the quarry.
Hack; to fly at.—The state of liberty
in which young long-winged hawks
are kept for some weeks before train-
ing.
Hood.—Leather cap, used for the pur-
pose of blindfolding or hoodwinking
hawks.
Jesses.—The leathern straps fastened
to the legs of hawks, by which they
are held.
Lure.—That by which the hawks are
attracted to the falconer.
Pitch.—The height to which a hawk
rises in the air.
Put in.—Is when the quarry is driven
to cover.
Quarry.—Game flown at.
Rake.—To fly to wind.
Raking.—Striking the game in the
air.
Ring.—To rise in the air spirally.
Stoop.— The rapid descent of a hawk
from a height on to its prey.
Train.—The tail of a hawk.
Waiting on.—The hawk to soar in
circles above the falconer, in expecta-
tion of the game to be sprung.
Yarak.—An Eastern term to signify
when the short-winged hawks are in
hunting condition.
The President, in thinking Mr. Mann for his excellent address, observed that
the introduction of shot guns had no doubt been the main cause of the decay of
the noble sport of falconry. He trusted that the efforts of Mr. Mann and others
would revive interest in the subject—for his own part while listening to their host's
enthusiastic descriptions of past adventures in field and fen, he confessed to feeling
many a responsive thrill, and he longed to see a "flight" of falcons, and experience
some of the delights of an old English sport which Mr. Mann had so vividly
portrayed. He then asked Captain C. H. Thompson (7th Dragoon Guards), of
Weathersfield, Essex, an experienced Indian falconer, for his address on :—
Indian Hawks and Hawking.
After the able manner in which Mr. Mann has sketched the salient points of
Falconry, as carried on at the present day in England and, in fact, Europe
generally, it is needless for me to enter deeply into the subject of my present
address, for hawking, be it here or in the East, is practised in much the same way,
and it is only the initiated who would appreciate the difference in many features
of the catching, reclaiming, and training of the Falcon Gentil.
From remote times the East has been the home and stronghold of falconry ;
Egyptian frescoes and bas-reliefs represent their kings and nobles with hawk on
fist. The Chinese have had trained hawks, as well as cormorants, from the earliest
days ; while in India and Persia, there is not a warrior of old but is represented
with his hawk ; and so, long before it was ever thought of in Europe—probably
before Britain was invaded by the Romans—falconry was practised and flourished
in Asia. It is to the far East—to the land of burning suns and cloudless skies,