best of the short-winged Hawks ; hut its habits, as well as its
mode of flying at its game, are very different: it does not
stoop to its prey, like most of the Falcons, but glides along
in a line after it, and takes it by a mode which, in the language
of falconry, is called raking. The Gos-Hawk is in
some esteem among falconers, being flown at Hares, Rabbits,
Pheasants, and Partridges. It flies low and fast for a short
distance, may be used in an enclosed country, and will even
dash through woods after its prey; but if it does not catch
the object, it soon gives up the pursuit, and perching on a
bough, waits till some new game presents itself, or until the
quarry, being pressed by hunger, is induced to move; and
as the Hawk is capable of greater abstinence, it generally
succeeds in taking it. Montagu was informed by Colonel
Thornton that at Thornville Royal, in Yorkshire, he flew a
Gos-Hawk at a Pheasant; but it got into cover, and he
lost the Hawk: at ten o’clock next morning the falconer
found her, and just as he had lifted her, the Pheasant ran
and rose.
The Gos-Hawk is a rare species in England at the present
day, and those that are used for hawking are obtained from
the continent; yet examples have been taken of late years
in several counties. Mr. Pemberton Bartlett, in ‘ The Zoologist
’ for 1844 (p. 618), notices one recently killed in Kent,
and in the same magazine for 1846 (p. 1496) mention is [
made by Mr. George Horn, of Egham, of one caught at the
beginning of that year. In Suffolk the capture of five examples,
and in Norfolk of eleven, has been recorded, mostly
within the last few years. One is also said by Mr. Sterland, J
in his ‘Birds of Sherwood Forest,’ to have been taken in
1848 at Rufford in Nottinghamshire. In Northumberland
or the adjacent counties seven examples have been killed, |
according to various writers. In Scotland at least half-a-
dozen have lately occurred from Roxburghshire to the Shet- j
lands, the particulars of which will be found in Mr. Robert
Gray’s work, while that gentleman, on the testimony of Mr.
Tottenham Lee, has reason to believe that it has even recently
bied in Kirkcudbrightshire, as it formerly, almost without
doubt, did in Forfarshire, Stirling, Moray and Sutherland.
The same author also quotes evidence from the ‘ Liber de
Melros,’ which seems to shew that in the thirteenth century
it regularly bred on the Border. . Colonel Thornton, when
in Scotland, had a nestling sent to him from the forest of
Rothiemurcus, and saw some eyries both there and in Glen-
more. Hence it is not unreasonable to suppose that, in
the days when large forests of Scotch-firs flourished naturally
in that kingdom, it inhabited the districts so occupied;
still there can be no doubt that considerable, confusion has
arisen from the fact that in several places its common name
has been and yet is applied to the Peregrine Falcon, and
hence some caution must be used in accepting all the testimony
as to its former abundance in this country. The
Falcon Gentil of Pennant, as has already been said (p. 56),
is the present species, which under that name he describes
and twice figures, mistaking the second for the first plumage
and the converse. In Ireland it seems to have occurred very
seldom. Thompson w7as unable to include it with certainty as
a bird of that island, but Mr. Watters records the occurrence
of a male in the county Longford in 1846, and lately one was
observed in county Wicklow by Mr. A. Basil Brooke (Zool.
s.s. p. 2288).
On the continent of Europe the Gos-Hawk is very generally
distributed, being most plentiful in Germany. I t is far from
uncommon in Lapland, where it breeds as far north as the
trees attain any size, and a representation of its nest is given
in the ‘ Ootlieca Wolleyana.’ I t inhabits nearly the whole
of the Russian Empire, reaching to Kamtchatka : many7 individuals
from those far eastern regions, as also, to some extent,
those from Southern Russia, being paler in colour and some
almost perfectly white, these last being highly valued for
Falconry. In China Mr. Swinhoe saw it used for hawking
near Pekin. I t inhabits and breeds in the Himalayas, and
occurs in winter on the plains of the Punjaub. De Filippi
noticed it in Persia. In Palestine it seems to he rare, and
not found south of the Lebanon. I t is recorded from Egypt
by Savigny and Ruppell, as well as by Captain Shelley, but
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