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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; and the indolent clergy even indulged in these cruel sports, though often forbidden by the church. Such prohibitions were issued by the council of Agda in the year 506; by that of Epaon in 517; by that of Macon in 585, and perhaps oftener, but never with much effect.

Before I proceed further, I shall make two remarks. First, that Pietro Crescentio gives one Daucus as the inventor of the art of taming hawks, but without proof, or even probability. Secondly, that the ancients bred up to hunting and fishing several rapacious animals which at present are not used for that purpose, such as the seal561 and sea-wolf562. Astruc563 has endeavoured to confute this idea; but his reasoning appears to me to have little weight; and I agree in opinion with Rondeletius and Isaac Vossius564, that seals might be instructed to catch fish; I myself have seen some, that, when commanded by their master, exhibited a variety of movements and tricks which undoubtedly prove their aptness to learn.

The art of falconry seems to have been carried to the greatest perfection, and to have been much in vogue at the principal courts of Europe in the twelfth century. Some on that account have ascribed the invention of it to the emperor Frederic I., and others to Frederic II. Frederic I., called Barbarossa, was the first who brought falcons to Italy; at least Pandolfo Collenuccio565 says that this was the common report, and Radevicus566 seems to confirm it; but I do not know from what authority Pancirollus tells us that that emperor invented falconry at the time when he was besieging Rome. Rainaldo, marquis of Este, was the first among the Italian princes who used this method of fowling567; and that the emperor Henry followed the example of his father, seems proved by the words of Collenuccio. The service rendered by Frederic II. to this art, if it can be said to deserve service, is shown by the book which he wrote in Latin on it, entitled De Arte Venandi cum Avibus, and which was printed for the first time at Augsburg in the year 1596, from a manuscript belonging to Joachim Camerarius, a physician of Nuremberg. It has here and there deficiencies, because the manuscript was torn, and some additions by the author’s son Manfred, king of Sicily. In the second book, there is an account of the use and manner of making hoods, called capellæ, which we are there told were invented by the Arabs. The emperor received as a present some hooded falcons from Arabian princes, and procured people from Arabia who understood the management of them568. Albertus Magnus has inserted a great deal from the work of this emperor in his book upon animals.

In none of the sports of the field have the fair sex partaken so much as in falconry. The ladies formerly kept hawks, in which they greatly delighted, and which were as much fondled by those who wished to gain their favour as lap-dogs are at present569. What tended principally, however, to bring it into disuse, was the invention of gunpowder. After that, hawks were discarded, and the whole enjoyment of fowling was confined to shooting. Less skill and labour were indeed required in this new exercise; but the ladies abandoned the pleasures of the chase, because they disapproved of the use of fire-arms, which were attended both with alarm and danger.

Among the oldest writers on falconry, we may reckon Demetrius, who about the year 1270 was physician to the emperor Michael Palæologus. His book, written in Greek, was first printed at Paris in 1612, by Nicholas Rigaltius, from a manuscript in the king’s library, and with the Latin translation of Peter Gyllius570. Some other works on the same subject, the antiquity of which is unknown, were printed at the same time. One in the Catalonian dialect has the forged title of Epistola Aquilæ, Symmachi et Theodotionis ad Ptolemæum regem Ægypti de re accipitraria. All these writings treat chiefly on the rearing and diseases of hawks; and contain cures, which, though some of them perhaps may be good enough, would not undoubtedly be all approved by any person of skill at present571. Aloes, to the size of about a bean, are ordered as a purge; and quicksilver is prescribed for the itch and outbreaking. We are told also, that a wild and untractable falcon was confined some time with a hood on in a smith’s shop, where it was soon tamed by the continual thumping of the hammers. One precept in Demetrius respecting the art of falconry seems very ill-suited to the practice of modern times. He desires sportsmen to say their prayers before they go out to the field. Had this custom been continued to the present day, many great men would be like the people mentioned by a certain traveller, who solicit the assistance of God when they are preparing for a piratical expedition572; but with this difference, that these rovers plunder only strange ships, whereas the latter destroy the property and possessions of their own subjects.