As the hawk was a bird so highly esteemed by the nobility of England, there will be no wonder if we find the royal edicts established for the preservation of their eggs; accordingly, in the eleventh year of Henry VII. it was decreed, that if any person was convicted of taking from the nests, or destroying the eggs of a falcon, a gos-hawk, a laner, or a swan, he should suffer imprisonment for one year and one day, and be liable to a fine at the king's pleasure; one half of which belonged to the crown, and the other half to the owner of the ground whereon the eggs were found; and, if a man destroyed the same sort of eggs upon his own ground, he was equally subject to the penalty. [231] This act was somewhat meliorated in the reign of Elizabeth, and the imprisonment reduced to three months: but then the offender was obligated to find security for his good behaviour for seven years, or remain in prison until he did.
XII.—VALUE OF HAWKS.
The severity of the above-mentioned laws may probably excite the surprise of such of my readers, as are not informed how highly this kind of birds was formerly appreciated. At the commencement of the seventeenth century, we find, that a gos-hawk and a tassel-hawk were sold for one hundred marks, which was a large sum in those days; and the price is by no means mentioned as singular or extravagant; for, on the contrary, an author, Edmund Best, who published a treatise upon hawks and hawking, printed at London, 1619, and who himself trained and sold them, insinuates, that the parting from the birds was considered as a favour: and no doubt it was so, if the hawks in training required such incredible pains and watchfulness, both by night and by day, as he declares are absolutely necessary. And upon this account such as were properly trained and exercised were esteemed presents worthy the acceptance of a king or an emperor. In the eighth year of the reign of Edward III. the king of Scotland sent him a falcon gentle as a present, which he not only most graciously received, but rewarded the falconer who brought it with the donation of forty shillings; a proof how highly the bird was valued. [232] It is further said, that in the reign of James I. Sir Thomas Monson gave one thousand pounds for a cast of hawks. A cast of hawks of toure, says an old book on hawking, signifies two, and a lese three.
XIII.—DIFFERENT SPECIES OF HAWKS.
The books of hawking assign to the different ranks of persons the sort of hawks proper to be used by them: and they are placed in the following order—
The eagle, the vulture, and the merloun, for an emperor.
The ger-faulcon, and the tercel of the ger-faulcon, for a king.
The faulcon gentle, and the turcel gentle, for a prince.
The faulcon of the rock, for a duke.
The faulcon peregrine, for an earl.
The bastard, for a baron.
The sacre, and the sacret, for a knight.
The lanere, and the laneret, for an esquire.
The marlyon, for a lady.
The hobby, for a young man. [233]
The gos-hawk, for a yeoman.
The tercel, for a poor man.
The sparrow-hawk, for a priest.
The musket, for a holy water clerk.
The kesterel, for a knave or servant.
This list includes, I presume, the greater part, if not all, of the names appertaining to the birds used in hawking. The Mews at Charing-cross, Westminster, is so called, from the word mew, which in the falconers' language, is the name of a place wherein the hawks are put at the moulting time, when they cast their feathers. The king's hawks were kept at this place as early as the year 1377, an. 1 Richard II.; but A. D. 1537, the 27th year of Henry VIII., it was converted into stables for that monarch's horses, and the hawks were removed. [234]
XIV.—TERMS USED IN HAWKING.
As in hunting, so in hawking, the sportsmen had their peculiar impressions, and therefore the tyro in the art of falconry is recommended to learn the following arrangement of terms as they were to be applied to the different kinds of birds assembled in companies. A sege of herons, and of bitterns; an herd of swans, of cranes, and of curlews; a dopping of sheldrakes; [235] a spring of teels; a covert of cootes; a gaggle of geese; a badelynge of ducks; a sord or sute of mallards; a muster of peacocks; a nye of pheasants; a bevy of quails; a covey of partridges; a congregation of plovers; a flight of doves; a dule of turtles; a walk of snipes; a fall of woodcocks; a brood of hens; a building of rooks; a murmuration of starlings; an exaltation of larks; a flight of swallows; a host of sparrows; a watch of nightingales; and a charm of goldfinches.