Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/395

Rh falconer), and "darts forward through strong desire for food that draws him thither." He wheels up into the air (Par. xviii. 45), carefully watched by the eye of the falconer. He spies his quarry, and makes for it. The only actual instance we have is in Inf. xxii, 131: this time a Duck, that at the Falcon's approach dives under, and comes up cross and weary. A very good description. I watched a big Hawk once in Norway that was dividing its attentions between a Heron and a Duck, neither of which left the sea-pool where they were. The Hawk settled on a tree in a small island, and kept sweeping down on first one and then the other. There was a great deal of shrieking, and the Heron baffled it by its flight, and the Duck by diving, coming up each time, one might judge from the sounds it emitted, distinctly cross and weary (Inf. xvii. 127). In Dante's simile of the approach of Geryon, we have a picture of the disappointed Hawk:

With this ends Dante's allusion to sporting; but, as the modern Italian, who goes alla caccia with his gun and his game-bag, shoots for the pot, and spares neither Yellowhammer nor Wagtail, perhaps this would be the place to mention the professional "che dietro all' uccello sua vita perde" (Purg. xxiii. 3). He apparently crept up, and looked cautiously through the leaves, and then took a sitting shot; for we are told (Purg. xxxi. 61) that the young inexperienced bird will wait till he has had two or three shots, but at the full-fledged (pennuto) it is no good shooting, and in vain is the net spread in its sight. The latter part is a quotation from the Book of Proverbs, "frustra jacitur rete ante oculos pennatorum" (an equivalent of "Old birds are not to be caught with chaff"), which in our version has been reduced to nonsense by translating (pennati) as "any bird."

Domestic animals and cattle next claim attention. Of the former, we have the Cat pursuing the Mouse (Inf. xxii. 58), and four allusions to Dogs. In the first, as in Calverley, "the Dog said nothing, but searched for fleas." He is describing the