Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/133

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
120
PASSERES.—LANIADÆ.

Paines. These Hawkes are in no Accompt with us, but poore simple Fellowes and Peasantes sometimes doe make them to the Fiste, and being reclaymed after their unskillfull Manner, do beare them hooded, as Falconers doe their other Kind of Hawkes whome they make to greater Purposes. Heere I ende of this Hawke, because I neyther accompt her worthe the name of a Hawke, in whom there resteth no Valour or Hardiness, ne yet deserving to have any more written of her Propertie and Nature, more than that she was in mine Author specified as a Member of my Division, and there reputed in the Number of long-winged Hawkes. For truely it is not the Propertie of any other Hawke, by such Devise and cowardly Will to come by their Prey, but they love to winne it by main Force of Winges at random, as the round-winged Hawkes doe, or by free stooping, as the Hawkes of the Tower doe most commonly use, as the Falcon, Gerfalcon, Sacre, Merlyn, and such like, which doe lie upon their wing, roving in the Ayre, and ruffe the Fowle, or kill it at the encounter."

Notwithstanding the slighting tone in which this author treats the attempts of the "poore fellowes" to reclaim this bird, Willughby affirms that it received a more refined and scientific consideration. "Although," says he, "it doth most commonly feed upon insects, yet doth it often set upon and kill not only small birds, as finches, wrens, &c., but (which Turner affirms himself to have seen) even Thrushes themselves: whence it is wont by our falconers to be reclaimed and made for to fly small birds."

But upon the Continent the Shrike appears to