A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins. Johann Beckmann

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      FALCONRY.

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The question whether Falconry was known to the ancient Greeks, has been determined in the negative by Flavius Blondus544, Laurentius Valla545, both writers of the fifteenth century; and likewise by Rigallius546, Pancirollus, Salmuth, and many others. It may, nevertheless, be here asked, what is generally understood under that term? However much the thousand barks which carried the Grecians to the siege of Troy might have been inferior to those floating castles lately seen by my countrymen before Gibraltar, they were nevertheless ships; and we cannot, on that account, deny that the Greeks were acquainted with the art of ship-building, though it was evidently then in its infancy. In the like manner I agree with Giraldus547, in allowing that they had some knowledge of falconry. I do not believe that they knew the art of hawking, that is, of chasing game with birds of prey previously trained, as practised in modern times, and which serves more for the amusement of trifling princes than for any useful purpose; but that they had begun to employ the rapacity of some of the winged tribe in hunting and fowling, cannot, in my opinion, be denied548.

So early as the time of Ctesias, hares and foxes were hunted in India by means of rapacious birds549. The account of Aristotle however is still more to the purpose, and more worthy of notice550. “In Thrace,” says he, “the men go out to catch birds with hawks551. The men beat the reeds and bushes which grow in marshy places, in order to raise the small birds, which the hawks pursue and drive to the ground, where the fowler kills them with poles.” A similar account is to be found in another book ascribed also to Aristotle, which appears, at any rate, to be the work of an author not much younger, but with two additions, which render the circumstance still more remarkable552. The first is, that the falcons appeared when called by their names; and the second, that of their own accord they brought to the fowlers whatever they caught themselves. Nothing is here wanting but the spaniel employed to find out game, the hood which is put upon the head of the hawk while it is perched on the hand, and the thong used for holding it, to form a short description of falconry as still practised. Our falconers, when they have taken the bird from the hawk, give him, in return, a small share of it; and in the like manner the Thracian hawks received some part of their booty. Other writers after Aristotle, such as Antigonus553, Ælian554, Pliny555, and Phile556, have also given an account of this method of fowling. Ælian, who seldom relates anything without some alteration or addition, says that in Thrace nets were used, into which the birds were driven by the hawks; and in this he is followed by the poet Phile. Ælian, also, in another place describes a manner of hunting with hawks in India, which, as we are told by several travellers, is still practised in Persia, where it is well understood, and by other eastern nations557.

It seems, therefore, that the Greeks received from India and Thrace the first information respecting the method of fowling with birds of prey; but it does not appear that this practice was introduced among them at a very early period. In Italy, however, it must have been very common, for Martial and Apuleius speak of it as a thing everywhere known. The former calls a hawk a fowler’s servant, and the latter makes use of a kind of pun on the word accipiter, which signified also a species of fish558. It cannot indeed be said that this art was ever forgotten; but, like other inventions, though at first much admired, it was afterwards neglected, so that it remained a long time without improvement. It is however certain that it was at length brought to the utmost degree of perfection. It is mentioned in the Roman laws559, and in writers of the fourth and fifth centuries.

Julius Firmicus Maternus, who in the time of Constantine the Great, about the year 336, wrote his Astronomicon, in which he teaches the art of casting nativities, assures us that those who are born under certain signs will become great sportsmen, and keep hounds and falcons560. Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius, who lived about the year 480, celebrates Herdicius, his wife’s brother, and son of the emperor Avitus, because he first practised in his territories hunting and fowling with dogs and hawks. The same author mentions hawking also in other parts of his work. That this diversion, however, has not been oftener spoken of and praised, needs excite little wonder. Hunting, and all the concomitant arts, were at first employed for use; in the course of time they were practised by servants, and easy means only of catching game were sought for. But when luxury was introduced into states, and the number of those who lived by other people’s labour increased, these idlers began to employ that time which they had not learned to make a proper use of, or which they were not compelled to apply to more valuable purposes, in catching wild animals by every method that ingenuity could suggest, or in tormenting them by lingering deaths. Hunting and fowling, therefore, received many improvements by the assistance of art; СКАЧАТЬ