see it clearly
History of Falconry
The antiquity of falconry is very great. There appears to be little doubt that it was practiced in Asia at a very remote period, for which we have the concurrent testimony of various Chinese and Japanese works.
It appears to have been known in China some 2000 years B.C., and the records of a king Wen Wang who reigned over a province of that country in 689 B.C. proves that the art was at that time in very high favor. In Japan it appears to have been known at least 600 years B.C., and probably at an equally early date in India, Arabia, Persia and Syria. Sir A. H. Layard, considered that in an ancient drawing found by him in the ruins of Khorsabad ‘‘there appeared to be a falconer bearing a hawk on his wrist,’’ from which it would appear to have been known there some 1700 years B.C. In all the above-mentioned countries of Asia it is practiced at the present day.
Little is known of the early history of falconry in Africa, but from very ancient Egyptian carvings and drawings it seems to have been known there many ages ago.’ It was probably also in vogue in the countries of Morocco, Oran, Algiers, Tunis and Egypt, at the same time as in Europe. The older writers on falconry, English and continental, often mention Barbary and Tunisian falcons. It is still practiced in Egypt.
Perhaps the oldest records of falconry in Europe are supplied by the writings of Pliny, Aristotle and Martial. Although their notices of the sport are slight and somewhat vague, they are quite sufficient to show clearly that it was practiced in their days—between the years 384 B.C. and A.D. 40. It was probably introduced into England from the continent about AD. 860, and from that time down to the middle of the 17th century falconry was followed with an ardor that perhaps no English sport has ever called forth, not even fox-hunting.
Stringent laws and enactments, notably in the reigns of William the Conqueror, Edward III., Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, were passed from time to time in its interest. Falcons and hawks were allotted to degrees and orders of men according to rank and station—for instance, to the emperor the eagle and vulture, to royalty the gyrfalcons, to an. earl the peregrine, to a yeoman the goshawk, to a priest the sparrow-hawk, and to a knave or servant the useless kestrel.
The writings of Shakespeare furnish ample testimony to the high and universal estimation in ,which it was held in his days. About the middle of the 17th century falconry began to decline in England, to revive somewhat at the Restoration. It never, however, completely recovered its former favor, a variety of causes operating against it, such as enclosure of waste lands, agricultural improvements, and the introduction of fire-arms into the sporting field, till it fell, as a national sport, almost into oblivion. Yet it has never been even temporarily extinct, and it is successfully practiced even at the present day.