The booke of falconrie or havvking for the onely delight and pleasure of all noblemen and gentlemen : collected out of the best authors, aswell Italians as Frenchmen, and some English practises withall concerning falconrie / heretofore published by George Turbervile, Gentleman.

Of mewing at the Stocke or the Stone.

THe place wherein you should mew a hawke at the stocke, should be a low parler or chamber vpon the ground, farre from any noyse or concourse of people, and situate towards the North or Northeast. Place therein a table of a conueni∣ent length, for the number of your Falcons, and let it bée fiue or sixe foot broad at the least, with little thinne boardes or planckes all alongst the sides and ends, nayled on foure fingers high. And let this Table be set on trestles of two foot high, or thrée foot high from the ground, and fill these Tables with great sand, which hath prety little round péeble and gra∣uell stones in it: in the midst whereof you may place some great frée stones a Cubite high, made like vnto a pillar, flat in the bottome, and playne & smooth aboue, growing by péece∣meale lesse and lesse vnto the toppe of them, Whereunto let your hawkes be tyed, eyther Falcon, Gerfalcon, Myllion, or Merlyne. Then take a small cord of the bignesse of a bow∣string or little more, put it through a ring, and binde it about the stone in such sort that the ring or swyvle may goe rounde about the stone without any stoppe or let: And thereunto tye the lease of a Falcon, which may so stand vpon the said stone being set in the sand. But you must haue regard, that (if you mew moe Falcons than one at once in one roome) you set your stones one so farre from another, that when your hawkes bate, they may not reach one another for crabbing. The great stones are set, for that a Falcon féeling the freshnes and coolenes of the stone, will delight to sitte still vppon it, & the litle grauel stones are, because a hawke will oftentimes swallow them to coole her within, and will kéepe them some∣times

two or thrée howres, or more within her. The sand also is necessary, because when they bate, they shal not marre their feathers, and also because thereby their mewts are the easlier cleansed, and to be remoued from them. The litle cord or bend with the ring on it, are tyed about the stone, because the Fal∣con bating this way and that way, she shall neuer twind nor tangle, because the ring followeth her still. All day your Fal∣cons should bée hooded vpon the stone, vnlesse it be when they would féed, for then onely you must take them on the fist vn∣till they haue sed. At night off with their hoodes, and because sometimes inconueniences doe happen by night, the Falconer may doe well to haue his bed in the mew, that hée may the soo∣ner, and in time helpe or redresse any thing that shall happen amisse amongst his hawkes.