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 present[569]. 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 Gyllius[570]. 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 present[571]. 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 expedition[572]; but with this difference, that these rovers plunder only strange ships, whereas the latter destroy the property and possessions of their own subjects. FOOTNOTES