on the other hand, by falconers, it was, and still is, technically limited to the female of the birds employed by them in their vocation (see FALCONRY), whether "long-winged ' and therefore "noble," or "short-winged" and "ignoble." According to modern usage, the majority of the Falcons, in the sense first given, may be separated into five very distinct groups: (1) the Falcons pure and simple (Falco proper); (2) the large northern Falcons (Hierofalco, Cuvier); (3) the "Desert Falcons" (Gennaa, Kaup); (4) the Merlins Esalon, Kaup); and (5) the Hobbies (Hypotriorchis, Boie). The precise order in which these should be ranked need not concern us here, but it must be mentioned that a sixth group, the Kestrels (Tinnunculus, Vieillot) is often added to them. This, however, appears to have been justifiably reckoned a distinct genus, and its consideration may for the present be deferred.

The typical Falcon is by common consent allowed to be that almost cosmopolitan species to which unfortunately the

FIG. 1.-Peregrine Falcon.

English epithet "peregrine" (ie., strange or wandering) has been attached. It is the Falco peregrinus of Tunstall (1771) and of most recent ornithologists, though some1 prefer the specific name communis applied by J. F. Gmelin a few years later (1788) to a bird which, if his diagnosis be correct, could not have been a true Falcon at all, since it had yellow irides-a color never met with in the eyes of any bird now called by naturalists a "Falcon." This species inhabits suitable localities throughout the greater part of the globe, though examples from North America have by some received specific recognition as F. anatumthe "Duck-Hawk," and those from Australia have been described as distinct under the name of F. melanogenys. Here, as in so many other cases, it is almost impossible to decide as to which forms should, and which should not, be accounted merely local races. In size not surpassing a Raven, this Falcon (fig. 1) is perhaps the most powerful Bird-of-Prey for its bulk that flies, and its courage is not less than its power. It is the species, in Europe, most commonly trained for the sport of hawking (see FALCONRY). Volumes have been written upon it, and to attempt a complete account of it is, within the limits now available, impossible. The plumage of the adult is generally blackish-blue above, and white, with a more or less deep cream-colored tinge, beneath-the lower parts, except the chin and throat, being barred transversely with black, while a black patch extends from the bill to the ear-coverts, and descends on either side beneath the mandible. The young have the upper parts deep blackish-brown, and the lower white, more or less strongly tinged with ochraceousbrown, and striped longitudinally with blackish-brown.

1 Among them Mr. Sharpe, who, in his recent Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, has besides rejected much of the evidence that the experience of those who have devoted years of study to the Falcons has supplied.

From Port Kennedy, the most northern part of the American continent, to Tasmania, and from the shores of the Sea of Ochotsk to Mendoza in the Argentine territory, there is scarcely a country in which this Falcon has not been found. Specimens have been received from the Cape of Good Hope, and it is only a question of the technical differentiation of species whether it does not extend to Cape Horn. Fearless as it is, and adapting itself to almost every circumstance, it will form its eyry equally on the sea-washed cliffs, the craggy mountains, or (though more rarely) the drier spots of a marsh in the northern hemisphere, as on trees (says Schlegel) in the forests of Java, or the waterless ravines of Australia. In the United Kingdom it was formerly very common, and hardly a high rock from the Shetlands to the Isle of Wight but had a pair as its tenants. But the British gamekeeper has long held the mistaken faith that it is his worst foe, and the number of pairs which are now allowed to rear their brood unmolested in these islands must be small indeed. Yet its utility to the game-preserver, by destroying every one of his most precious wards that shows any sign of infirmity, can hardly be questioned by reason, and no one has more earnestly urged its claims to protection than Mr. G. E. Freeman (Falconry, etc., p. 10). Nearly allied to this Falcon are several species of which it is impossible here to treat at length, such as F. barbarus of Mauritania, F. minor of South Africa, the Asiatic F. babylonicus, F. peregrinator of India -the Shaheen, and perhaps F. cassini of South America, with some others.

Next to the typical Falcons comes a group known as the "great northern" Falcons (Hierofalco). Of these the most remarkable is the Gyrfalcon (F. gyrfalco), whose home is in the Scandinavian mountains, though the young are yearly visitants to the plains of Holland and Germany. In plumage it very much resembles F. peregrinus, but its flanks have generally a bluer tinge, and its superiority in size is at once manifest. Nearly allied to it is the Icelander (F. islandus), which externally differs in its paler coloring, and in almost entirely wanting the black mandibular patch. Its proportions, however, differ a good deal, its body being elongated. Its country is shown by its name, but it also inhabits South Greenland, and not unfrequently makes its way to the British Islands. Very close to this comes the Greenland Falcon (F. candicans), a native of North Greenland, and perhaps of other countries within the Arctic circle. Like the last, the Greenland Falcon from time to time occurs in the United Kingdom, but it is always to be distinguished by wearing a plumage in which at every age the prevailing color is pure white. In North-Eastern America these birds are replaced by a kindred form (F. labradorus) first detected by Audubon, and lately recognized by Mr. Dresser (Orn. Miscell., i. p. 135). It is at once distinguished by its very dark coloring, the lower parts being occasionally almost as deeply tinted at all ages as the upper.

All the birds hitherto named possess one character in common. The darker markings of their plumage are longitudinal before the first real moult takes place, and for ever afterwards are transverse. In other words, when young the markings are in form of stripes, when old in form of bars. The variation of tint is very great, especially in F. peregrinus; but the experience of falconers, whose business it is to keep their birds in the very highest condition, shows that a Falcon of either of these groups if light-colored in youth is light-colored when adult, and if dark when young is also dark when old-age, after the first moult, making no difference in the complexion of the bird. The next group is that of the so-called "Desert Falcons" (Gennaa), wherein the difference just indicated does not obtain, for long as the bird may live and often as it may moult, the original style of markings never gives way to any other. Foremost among these are to be considered the Lanner and the Saker (commonly termed F. lanarius and F. sacer), both well known in the palmy days of Falconry, but only within the last forty years or so re-admitted to full recognition. Both of these birds belong properly to South-eastern Europe, North Africa, and South-western Asia. They are, for their bulk, less powerful than the members of the preceding group, and

It is not to be inferred, however, as many writers have done, that Falcons habitually prey upon birds in which disease has made any serious progress. Such birds meet their fate from the less noble Accipitres, or predatory animals of many kinds. But when a bird is first affected by any disorder, its power of taking care of itself is at once impaired, and hence in the majority of cases it may become an easy victim under circumstances which would enable a perfectly sound bird to escape from the attack even of a Falcon.

it was on his recommendation that it was introduced into that country. He also made large natural history collections, not only of the productions of the country round Saharunpoor, but also of the valley of Kashmir and the countries to the north of it, exploring at the same time the glacier on the southern flank of the Muztagh range, and the great glaciers of Arindoh and of the Braldoh valley. He was compelled by illness to leave India in 1842, and during his stay in England, besides reading various papers on his discoveries before several learned societies, he occupied himself with the classification and arrangement of the Indian fossils presented to the British Museum and East India House, chiefly by himself and Captain Cautley. In 1848 he was appointed superintendent of the Calcutta botanical garden, and professor of botany in the medical college; and on entering on his duties he was at once employed by the Indian Government and the Agricultural and Horticultural Society as their adviser on all matters connected with the vegetable products of India. Being compelled by the state of his health to leave India in 1855, he spent the remainder of his life chiefly in examining fossil species in England and the Continent corresponding to those which he had discovered in India. In the course of his researches he became interested in the question of the antiquity of the human race, and actually commenced a work on "Primeval Man," which, however, he was not spared to finish. He died 31st January, 1865. He was a member of many learned societies, both British and foreign. Shortly after his death a committee was formed for the promotion of a "Falconer Memorial." This took the shape of a marble bust, which was placed in the rooms of the Royal Society of London, and of a Falconer scholarship of the annual value of £100, open for competition to graduates in science or medicine of the university of Edinburgh.

Dr. Falconer's botanical notes, with 450 colored drawings of Kashmir and Indian plants, have been deposited in the library at Kew, and his Paleontological Memoirs and Notes, comprising all his papers read before learned societies, have been edited, with a biographical sketch, by Charles Murchison, M.D., London, 1868.

FALCONER, WILLIAM, our greatest naval poet,-Charles Dibdin taking rank as second,-was born in Edinburgh, February 11, 1732. His father was a wig-maker, and carried on business in one of the small shops with wooden fronts at the Netherbow Port, an antique castellated structure which remained till 1764, dividing High Street from the Canongate. The old man, who is described as a sort of humorist, was unfortunate. Of his three children two were deaf and dumb; he became bankrupt, then tried business as a grocer, and finally died in extreme poverty. William, the son, having received a scanty education, was put to sea. He served on board a Leith merchant vessel, and in his eighteenth year was fortunate enough to obtain the appointment of second mate of the Britannia," a vessel employed in the Levant trade, and sailed from Alexandria for Venice. The "Britannia" was overtaken by a dreadful storm off Cape Colonna and was wrecked, only three of the crew being saved. Falconer was happily one of the three, and the incidents of the voyage and its disastrous termination formed the subject of his poem of The Shipwreck. "In all Attica," says Byron, “if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher the supposed scene of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over 'isles that crown the Egean deep.' But for an Englishman Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell—

Here in the dead of night, by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep.'' After the wreck of the "Britannia" and his return to England, Falconer, in his nineteenth year, appeared as a poet. He printed at Edinburgh an elegy on Frederick, prince of Wales,-a puerile inflated performance,-and afterwards contributed short pieces to the Gentleman's Magazine. Some of these descriptive and lyrical effusions possess merit. The fine naval song of The Storm ("Cease, rude Boreas"), reputed to be by George Alexander Stevens,

the dramatic writer and lecturer, has been ascribed to Falconer, but apparently on no authority. It is foreign to his usual style. Had he been the author he would assuredly have claimed it. Falconer continued in the merchant service until the spring of 1762, when he gained the patronage of Edward, duke of York, by dedicating to him his poem of The Shipwreck, which appeared in May of that year, "printed for the author." The duke advised him to enter the royal navy, and before the end of summer the poet-sailor was rated as a midshipman on board the "Royal George.” But as this ship was paid off at the peace of 1763, and as Falconer's period of service had been too short to enable him to obtain the commission of lieutenant, he was advised to exchange the military for the civil department of the navy, and in the course of the same year he received an appointment as purser of the "Glory" frigate, a situation which he held until that vessel was laid up on ordinary at Chatham. In 1764 he published a new edition of The Shipwreck, corrected and enlarged, and printed, not for the author, as in the former instance, but for Andrew Millar, the publisher of Hume and Robertson, and whom Johnson called the Maecenas of the age. About nine hundred lines were added to this new edition of the poem, including what may be termed its character-painting and elaborated description and episodes. In the same year, 1764, Falconer published a political satire, a virulent rhyming tirade against Wilkes and Churchill, entitled The Demagogue; and in 1769 appeared his Universal Marine Dictionary, an elaborate and valuable work. While engaged on this dictionary, Mr. Murray, a bookseller in Fleet Street, father of Byron's munificent publisher and correspondent, wished him to join him as a partner in business. The poet declined the offer, probably because his dictionary was then near completion, and he might reasonably anticipate from its publication some favorable naval appointment. He did receive this reward; he was appointed purser of the Aurora" frigate, which had been commissioned to carry out to India certain supervisors or superintendents of the East India Company. Besides his nomination as purser, Falconer was promised the post of private secretary to the commissioners. Before sailing he published a third edition of his Shipwreck, which had again undergone "correction," but not improvement. Mr. Stanier Clarke conceived that the poet, in his agitation and joy on being appointed to the alterations to his friend Mallet; but Mallet had then been Aurora," had neglected this edition, and left the last more than four years in his grave, and Falconer, in the "advertisement which he prefixed to the volume, and which is dated from Somerset House, October 1, 1769, said he had been encouraged by the favorable reception the poem had met with to give it " a strict and thorough revision."

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The day after this announcement the poet sailed in the "Aurora" from Spithead. The vessel arrived safely at the Cape of Good Hope, and having passed a fortnight there, left on the 27th of December. She was never more heard of, having, as is supposed, foundered at sea. The captain was a stranger to the navigation, and had obstinately persisted in proceeding by the Mozambique Channel instead of stretching as usual into the Indian Ocean south of Madagascar. Every commander of a vessel, as Fielding has remarked, claims absolute dominion in his little wooden world, and in too many instances shows the dangerous consequences of absolute power.

Thus miserably perished William Falconer in the thirtyseventh year of his age. His fame rests on his poem of The Shipwreck, and rests securely. In that work he did not aspire to produce a great effect by a few bold touches, or the rapid and masterly grouping of appalling or horrible circumstances. He labors in detail, bringing before us the events as they arise, and conducting us with an interest constantly increasing towards the catastrophe. Such a tremendous picture of shipwreck as that which Byron has, in wild sportiveness, thrown out in Don Juan, immeasurably transcends the powers of Falconer, and, indeed, stands alone in its terrible sublimity; but, on the other hand, the naval poet, by the truth and reality of his descriptions, ultimately impresses the mind of the reader, if not with such vivid force, perhaps with even more enduring effect. Some of the classic invocations to the shores of Greece, and some descriptive passages, are a little tawdry, but the grand incidents of the poem are never forgotten. The personification of the ship in its last struggles is sublime as well as affecting, and the reader's anxiety and sympathy with the prin

cipal characters and the hapless crew never slumber. Nor are the technical expressions and directions a drawback to the general reader. They are explained in footnotes, and give a truth and reality to the narrative; and they do not occur in the more, impassioned scenes.

(R. CA.) FALCONET, ÉTIENNE MAURICE (1716-1791), a French sculptor, was born at Paris in 1716. His parents were poor, and he was at first apprenticed to a carpenter, but some of his clay-figures, with the making of which he occupied his leisure hours, having attracted the notice of Lemoine, that sculptor made him his pupil. While diligently prosecuting his profession he found time to study Greek and Latin, and also wrote several brochures on art, in which many names both ancient and modern of great reputation are treated in a remarkably disparaging way. His artistic productions are characterized by the same defects as his writings, for though manifesting considerable cleverness and some power of imagination, they display in many cases a false and fantastic taste, the result most probably of an excessive striving after originality. One of his most successful statues was one of Milo of Crotona, which secured his admission to the membership of the Academy of Fine Arts. Many of his works, being placed in churches, were destroyed at the time of the French Revolution. At the invitation of the empress Catherine he went to St. Petersburg, where he executed a colossal statue of Peter the Great in bronze. On his return to Paris in 1788 he became director of the French Academy of Painting. He died 4th January, 1791. Among his writings are Réflexions sur la sculpture (Par. 1768), and Observations sur la statue de Mare Aurèle (Par. 1771). The whole were collected under the title of Euvres littéraires (6 vols., Lausanne, 1781-82; 3 vols., Paris, 1787).

FALCONRY, the art of employing falcons and hawks in the chase,-a sport the practice of which is usually termed hawking. Falconry was for many ages of the Old World's history one of the principal sports. Probably it may be considered as having been always as purely a sport as it is at the present day; for even in the rudest times man must have been possessed of means and appliances for the capture of wild birds and beasts more effectual than the agency of hawks, notwithstanding the high state of efficiency to which, as we may still see, well-trained hawks may be brought. The antiquity of falconry is very great. It seems impossible to fix the exact period of its first appearance. There appears to be little doubt that it was practised in Asia at a very remote period, for which we have the concurrent testimony of various Chinese and Japanese works, some of the latter being most quaintly and yet spiritedly illustrated. It appears to have been known in China some 2000 years B.C., and the records of a King Wen Wang, who reigned over a province of that country 689 B.C., prove that the art was at that time in very high favor. In Japan it appears to have been known at least 600 years B.C., and probably at an equally early date in India, Arabia, Persia, and Syria. Sir A. H. Layard, as we learn from his work on Nineveh and Babylon, considers that in a bas-relief found by him in the ruins of Khorsabad "there appeared to be a f lconer bearing a hawk on his wrist," from which it would appear to have been known there some 1700 years B.C. In all the above-mentioned countries of Asia it is practised at the present day.

Little is known of the early history of falconry in Africa, but from very ancient Egyptian carvings and drawings it seems to have been known there many ages ago. It was probably also in vogue in the countries of Morocco, Oran, Algiers, Tunis, and Egypt, at the same time as in Europe. The older writers on falconry, English and Continental, often mention Barbary and Tunisian falcons. It is still practised in Africa; the present writer has visited two hawking establishments in Egypt.

Perhaps the oldest records of falconry in Europe are supplied by the writings of Pliny, Aristotle, and Martial. Although their notices of the sport are slight and somewhat vague, yet they are quite sufficient to show clearly that it was practised in their days-between the years 384 B.C. and 40 A.D. It was probably introduced into England from the Continent about 860 A.D., and from that time down to the middle of the 17th century falconry was followed with an ardor that perhaps no sport in our country has ever called forth, not even our grand national sport of fox-hunting. Stringent laws and enactments, notably in the reigns of William the Conqueror, Edward III., Henry VIII., and

Elizabeth, were passed from time to time in its interest. Falcons and hawks were allotted to degrees and orders of men according to rank and station, for instance, to royalty the jerfalcons, to an earl the peregrine, to a yeoman the goshawk, to a priest the sparrow-hawk, and to a knave or servant the useless kestrel. The writings of Shakespeare furnish ample testimony to the high and universal estimation in which it was held in his days. About the middle of the 17th century falconry began to decline in England, to revive somewhat at the Restoration. It never, however, completely recovered its former favor, a variety of causes operating against it, such as enclosure of waste lands, agricultural improvements, and the introduction of fire-arms into the sporting field, till it fell, as a national sport, almost into oblivion. Yet it has never been even temporarily extinct, and it is still very successfully practised at the present day.

In

In Europe the game or 'quarry" at which hawks are flown consists of grouse (confined to the British Isles), blackgame, pheasants, partridges, quails, landrails, ducks, teal, woodcocks, snipes, herons, rooks, crows, gulls, magpies, jays, black birds, thrushes, larks, hares, and rabbits. former days geese, cranes, kites, ravens, and bustards were also flown at. Old German works make much mention of the use of the Iceland falcon for taking the great bustard, a flight scarcely alluded to by English writers. In Asia the list of quarry is longer, and, in addition to all the foregoing, or their Asiatic representatives, various kinds of bustards, sand grouse, storks, ibises, spoonbills, pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, kites, vultures, and gazelles are captured by trained hawks. In Mongolia and Chinese Tartary, and among the nomad tribes of Central Asia, the sport still flourishes; and though some late accounts are not satisfactory either to the falconer or the naturalist, yet they leave no doubt that a species of eagle is still trained in those regions to take large game, as antelopes and wolves. Mr. Atkinson, in his account of his travels in the country of the Amoor, makes particular mention of the sport, as does also Mr. Shaw in his work on Yarkand; and in a letter from the Yarkand embassy, under Mr. Forsyth, C. B., dated Camp near Yarkand, Nov. 27, 1873, the following passage occurs:- "Hawking appears also to be a favorite amusement, the golden eagle taking the place of the falcon or hawk. This novel sport seemed very successful." It is questionable whether the bird here spoken of is the golden eagle. In Africa gazelles are taken, and also partridges and wildfowl.

The hawks used in England at the present time are the three great northern falcons, viz., the Greenland, Iceland, and Norway falcons, the peregrine falcon, the hobby, the merlin, the goshawk, and the sparrow-hawk. In former days the saker, the lanner, and the Barbary or Tunisian falcon were also employed. (See FALCON.)

Of the foregoing the easiest to keep, most efficient in the field, and most suitable for general use at the present day are the peregrine falcon and the goshawk.

In all hawks, the female is larger and more powerful than the male.

Hawks are divided by falconers all over the world into two great classes. The first class comprises "falcons,' "long-winged hawks," or "hawks of the lure," distinguished by Eastern falconers as "dark-eyed hawks." In these the wings are pointed, the second feather in the wing is the longest, and the irides are dark-brown. Merlins must, however, be excepted; and here it would seem that the Eastern distinction is the best, for though merlins are much more falcons than they are hawks, they differ from falcons in having the third feather in the wing the longest, while they are certainly "dark-eyed hawks."

The second class is that of "hawks," "short-winged hawks," or "hawks of the fist," called by Eastern falconers "yellow (or rose) eyed hawks." In these the wings are rounded, the fourth feather is the longest in the wing, and the irides are yellow, orange, or deep-orange.

The following glossary of the principal terms used in falconry may, with the accompanying woodcut, assist the reader in perusing this notice of the practice of the art. Useless or obsolete terms are omitted:Bate.—A hawk is said to "bate" when she flutters off from the fist, perch or block, whether from wildness, or for exercise, or in the attempt to chase. Bewits.-Straps of leather by which the bells are fastened to a hawk's legs.