A tiercel gentle which I call, my masters,
As he were sent a messenger to the moon,
In such a place, flies, as he seems to say
See me or see me not.”
By the falcon is always understood the female, as distinguished from the tercel, or male, of the peregrine or goshawk. The latter was probably called the tercel, or tiercel, from being about a third smaller than the falcon. Some authorities, however, state that of the three young birds usually found in the nest of a falcon, two of them are females and the third a male; hence the name of tercel.[43]
THE TERCEL-GENTLE.
By others, again, the term is supposed to have been derived from the French gentil, meaning neat or handsome, because of the beauty of its form.
There appears to be a great deal of confusion in the nomenclature of the hawks used in falconry. The same name has been applied to two distinct species, and the same species, in different states of plumage, has received two or more names. With regard to the “tercel,” as distinguished from the “tercel-gentle,” it would appear that the former name was given to the male goshawk, and the latter to the male peregrine; for the peregrine being a long-winged hawk, and the more noble of the two, the word “gentle,” or “gentil,” was applied to it with that signification.
In this view we are supported to some extent by quaint old Izaak Walton. In his “Compleat Angler,” there is an animated conversation between an angler, a hunter, and a falconer, each of whom in turn commends his own recreation. The falconer gives a list of his hawks, and divides them into two classes, viz.: the long-winged and short-winged hawks. In enumerating each species in pairs, he gives first the name of the female, and then that of the male: among the first class we find—
The gerfalcon and jerkin,