The question whether Falconry was known to the ancient Greeks, has been determined in the negative by Flavius Blondus[544], Laurentius Valla[545], both writers of the fifteenth century; and likewise by Rigallius[546], 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 Giraldus[547], 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 denied[548]. So early as the time of Ctesias, hares and foxes were hunted in India by means of rapacious birds[549]. The account of Aristotle however is still more to the purpose, and more worthy of notice[550]. “In Thrace,” says he, “the men go out to catch birds with hawks[551]. 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 remarkable[552]. 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 Antigonus[553], Ælian[554], Pliny[555], and Phile[556], 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