Here we have several hawking terms in a single sentence. _Haggard_, already mentioned, is used as an adjective, meaning wild or lawless. The _jesses_ were straps of leather or silk attached to the foot of the hawk, by which the falconer held her. The bird was _whistled off_ when first set free for flight; and she was always let fly against the wind. If she flew with the wind behind her, she seldom returned. If therefore a hawk was for any reason to be dismissed, she was _let down the wind_, and from that time shifted for herself and _preyed at fortune_, or at random. The legs of the hawk were adorned with two small bells, not both of the same sound but differing by a semitone. They were intended to frighten the game, so that it could be more readily caught. This is alluded to in _Lucrece_, 511:-- "Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells." Touchstone also refers to the bells in _As You Like It_ (iii. 3. 81): "As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires." There is another figurative allusion to them in _3 Henry VI._ i. 1. 47, where Warwick, boasting of his power, says:-- "Neither the king, nor he that loves him best, The proudest he that holds up Lancaster, Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells." In England _mews_ is the name commonly given to a livery stable, or place where carriage horses are kept. The word has a curious connection with hawking. A bird was said to _mew_, when it moulted or changed its feathers. When hawks were moulting they were shut up in a cage or coop, which was called a _mew_. The royal stables in London got the name of _mews_ because they were built where the mews of the king's hawks had been situated. This was done in the year 1537, the hawks being removed to another place. The word _mews_, being thus used for the royal stables, gradually came to be applied to other buildings of the kind. It would take too much space to quote and explain all the allusions to hawking in Shakespeare's works. The few here given may serve as samples of this very interesting class of technical terms, most of which became obsolete when the art ceased to be practised. [Illustration: BOY WITH HAWK AND HOUNDS] Before dropping the subject, however, I may remind the young reader that many of the quotations here given to illustrate archery, hawking, and other ancient arts, sports, and games, also illustrate the fact that the figurative language of a period is affected by its manners and customs. The one needs to be known in order to understand the other. To take a fresh example, John Skelton, who lived in the time o£ Henry VIII., refers to a lady thus:-- "Merry Margaret, As midsummer flower; Gentle as falcon, Or hawk of the tower."