Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

hawk. The hawk responds that it is not so stupid as to let go a sure meal in order to chase
after one that cannot yet be seen.
Among ancient naturalist writings, the hawk is a noble and admirable bird.
Aristotle and Pliny make minimal mention of the sport of falconry, but tell very similar
tales of men hunting with birds in the area of Thrace. Aelian includes this tale as well.
Aristotle says,3
In the part of Thrace once named as belonging to ICedripolis4 men hunt the small
birds in the marsh in partnership with the hawks. The men hold sticks and stir the
reeds and brushwood to make the small birds fly, while the hawks from above
appear overhead and chase them down. In fear they fly down again to the ground;
the men strike them with the sticks and take them, and give the hawks a share in
the prey: they throw them some of the birds and the hawks catch them.
Pliny's account5 differs only in that he states that it is the hawks themselves who
strike down the prey, rather than letting the men do so with sticks. Aelian, on the other
hand, tells that it is falcons, rather than hawks,6 who are used this way in Thrace, and that
the prey is caught by being chased by the falcons into the hunters' outspread nets.'
Only Oppian mentions falconry in a way that suggests that the practice is
commonplace. He divides venery into three categories, based on the prey pursued:
hunting for land animals, fowling, and fishing. He describes fowlers as hunting
accompanied by hawks: "To their hunt the fowlers carry nor sword nor bill nor brazen
3Historia animalium, ed. and trans. D. M. Balme (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), VIII,
xxxvi. 309.
Kedropolis was a king of part of Thrace in the early 41h century B.C.
The Natural History, trans. Bostock and Riley (London: H. G. Bohn, 1855) X. 10.
The word that Aelian uses that is translated as "falcon" in this anecdote is 'tipat, whereas, when he is,
elsewhere in his work, referring to hawks, he uses the word ~ip~oq, as do the other authors 'here cited who
write in Greek.
' Aelianus, Claudius, De natura animalium, ed. and trans. A. F. Scholfield (London, Cambridge, MA:
William Heinemann Ltd., Harvard University Press, 1958), 11. 42.