Hawking is an old pastime. We often in the present day hear, or read, that racing is "the sport of kings," but there is no doubt that hawking really once came under that description. Dear old Burton, in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' referring to the writings of Paulus Jovius, remarks of that author, that he doth in some sort tax "our English nobility for it, for living in the country so much, and too frequent use of it, as if they had no other means but hawking and hunting to approve themselves gentlemen with." It must, however, have been a fine sport then, and in an attenuated form can be still practised now, as Mr. Harting's pages amply testify. Possibly its mildest aspect was — again quoting Burton—when the Persian kings hawked butterflies with sparrows "made to that use."
This is one of those interesting books which prove how a scientific ornithologist can write like a good sportsman—using that word in its real and not current definition; and also shows how sport and a knowledge of natural history can and should go together. Both in "Hints on the Management of Hawks," and in the space devoted to "Practical Falconry," the reader who does not pursue the sport will find much to instruct him in the nature and names of birds of prey, while the chapters on "Devices for taking Hawks" and "Indian Snares for Hawks" enter the domain of another work on the 'History of Fowling,' recently noticed in these pages (ante, p. 134).
The illustrations leave nothing to be desired, and Mr. Harting is to be congratulated on issuing a revised and amplified second edition of a work which appeals both to the sportsman and the naturalist, and possesses the literary charm incidental to a wide reading on the subject.
