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OBSERVATIONS ON FIRST PERIOD, &C.

ness; whilst in others strength was the chief characteristic.Some few were distinguished for both strength and fleetness;as the Irish wolf-dog, the fox and blood hounds. The grey-hound was then, and is now eminent for its rapidity in thechase; and sufficiently strong for the game it usually pur-sues. The terrier and spaniel possess an eminent sense ofsmelling; all dogs are famous for some attribute or other,and most were found serviceable in this exercise. But withdogs of one description or other, hunting was generallyperformed, accompanied with men on foot and horseback:and this mode has continued with little variation.

In early times, those who went to the chase equippedthemselves as though they were going to battle, at first withclubs of wood and metal, sometimes of both together. Inlater days they have used spears, shields, battle-axes, lances,&c.

Fowls were usually taken before the discovery of gun-powder by certain carnivorous birds of the aequaline species,of slender form and great strength of pinion, called eagles,falcons, hawks, &c. wherefore the general term for obtainingfeathered game was falconry : the birds, pursuing others,being first carefully trained to the exercise. Some few, in-deed, were killed by bow and arrows; whence came theterm ARCHERY. In Mexico , the natives had a method ofshooting birds by small pellets, which they emitted throughcylindrical tubes by their breath . 7 But a more certain de-struction now awaits the feathered race from the cylindricalgun and the percussive force of gunpowder.

The practice of hunting has been in latter days confinedto, or rather assumed by, kings and their nobles; whenceoriginated game laws, which are regarded in most nations asseverely oppressive upon the free agency of man. But theyare much more so, in some countries than in others, wherean infringement of them is punished by as severe penaltiesas murder or robbery. Under the ancient regime, this was,for instance, the case in France .

In the most early civilized countries, i. e. Persia , Greece ,and Rome , the exercise of hunting was cultivated by princes,nobility, the rich, and most polite of the people, ladies andgentlemen. At present it constitutes the chief diversion ofeastern princes, who, generally with their whole court,seraglio, and trades-people, consume nearly one-half of theyear in the chase of various animals.

7 It has also been a practice to take birds by a decoy bird of their species,whence they were entrapped in nets. Poachers , also, vise nets and gins for de-struction of the game.