“We hasten back as fast as we can, but the weather being now hot, the herons move more by night than by day. Many anxious eyes search the horizon for another.
“The two sets of falconers, with their hawks, place themselves about half a mile apart, to intercept the herons on their passage back from their fishing-grounds.
“There is no lack of herons. The little wind there was has fallen to a calm, and they come home higher. All the
better, for we have some good casts to fly. One is soon ‘hooded off’ at, and, after a capital flight, is taken high in the air. The pet hawks are now taken in hand—‘De Ruyter’ and ‘Sultan;’ and, as there is no wind, the owner says he will fly at the first ‘light one,’ that comes at all fair. All is excitement when one is seen coming from the heronry, and therefore unweighted. They are ‘hooded off’ in his face; he sees them directly, and proceeds to mount. ‘Now, good hawks, you will have some work to do before you overtake him!’ The knowing riders are down wind as hard as they can go. Ring after ring is made, and yet the hawks seem to gain but little on him. Still they are flying like swallows: ‘De Ruyter’ makes a tremendous ring, but still fails to get above him. Again and again they ring, and have attained a great height. A scream of delight is heard: they are above him; ‘De Ruyter’ is at him! A fine stoop, but the heron dodges out of the way. Now for ‘Sultan;’ but she misses too; the heron is up like a shot, and three or four rings have to be made before there is another stoop. Another and another stoop, with loud cheers from below. ‘Sultan’ just catches him once, but can’t hold; it seems still a doubtful victory, when ‘De Ruyter’ hits him hard; and, after two or three more stoops, ‘Sultan’ catches him, amidst the excitement of hurrahs and whoops; a really good flight; can’t be better,—two and a half miles from where they were ‘hooded off.’
“Thus ended as good a day’s sport as any one could wish to see.”
The heron, besides affording great sport with hawks, was considered, when killed, a delicacy for the table. At the ancient City feasts and entertainments to royalty, the heron always appeared amongst the other good things;[129] and from the old “Household Books” it appears that the price usually paid for this bird was xijd. Of late years the heron has dropped out of the bill of fare, and no longer forms a fashionable dish. One of the last records of its appearance at table which we have met with, is in connection with the feast which was given by the Executors of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the London Charter House, on the 18th May, 1812, in the Hall of the Stationers’ Company. “For this repast were provided 32 neats’ tongues, 40 stone of beef, 24 marrow-bones, 1 lamb, 46 capons, 32 geese, 4 pheasants, 12 pheasants’ pullets, 12 godwits, 24 rabbits, 6 hearnshaws,” &c., &c.
THE WOODCOCK.
Amongst the other “lang-nebbit things” which interest both sportsman and gourmand, the Woodcock and Snipe received almost as much attention in Shakespeare’s day as they do at the present time—with this difference, however, that where the gun is now employed, the gin or springe was formerly the instrument of their death.
“Four woodcocks in a dish.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act iv. Sc. 3.