A History And Guide to Falconry or Hawking

The oldest of field sports explained from both ends: how hawking was practised and written about, and what sort of creature a bird actually is.

A History and Guide to Falconry or Hawking, this anonymous volume sets the sport inside a wider account of birds. It opens well away from the hawking field, with a systematic survey of the bird families, a chapter on their structure and functions, and a popular natural history of the better-known kinds. Only then does it turn to the sport itself, considering hawking first historically and then practically, and closing on the way it is carried on in the field. The author is not named, and the writing has the unhurried, descriptive manner of an older school of natural history.

It answers two curiosities at once. For anyone drawn to birds of prey, it is a portrait of the craft as an earlier generation understood it, before modern practice settled its shape. For the reader who simply likes birds, the opening chapters are an accessible piece of period ornithology, more interested in habit and character than in system.

This edition features:

• A systematic survey of the bird families, with a chapter on their structure and functions
• The history of hawking set beside the practical business of flying and keeping a hawk
• A popular natural history of birds, written for the general reader rather than the specialist
• Of interest to falconers, field sports readers, and anyone drawn to early bird study