TO TELL A HAWK
LATHAM, Simon.
Latham’s Falconry: or, the Faulcons Lure, and Cure: in two Books. The first, concerning the ordering and training up of all Hawkes in generall … the second, teaching approved Medicine for the cure of all Diseases in them. Gathered by long practice and experience, and published for the delight of noble mindes, and instruction of young Faulconers in things pertaining to this Princely Art …
London: Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Harison. 1633.
Two vols bound in one, small 4to, pp. [24], 147, [1]; and [22], 148, [4] (wanting the preliminary blank); woodcut of a falcon surrounded by the equipment of the sport on the title-page of the first book, numerous small woodcuts of hawks and equipment in the text of the second; title-page of first book dusty, a few signature marks shaved, a few spots and stains, marginal worm-track to the second book, withal a very good, crisp copy in early nineteenth-century polished calf; armorial bookplate of the bibliophile Charles Barclay.
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Latham’s Falconry: or, the Faulcons Lure, and Cure: in two Books. The first, concerning the ordering and training up of all Hawkes in generall … the second, teaching approved Medicine for the cure of all Diseases in them. Gathered by long practice and experience, and published for the delight of noble mindes, and instruction of young Faulconers in things pertaining to this Princely Art …
First collected edition (third edition of volume I, originally published in 1614 and reissued in 1615, second edition of volume II, originally published in 1618).
The author acquired his skills in the ‘princely art’ of falconry during the reign of Elizabeth I from Henry Sadler of Everley, ‘my first and loving Master’ and the Queen’s Grand Falconer. In the first book he provides a brief glossary of terms and deals with the training, care, and ailments of the Haggard Faulcon and Gerfaulcon. The second book deals with the Goshawk and other varieties. The standard treatise of its period, Latham’s Falconry ‘ranks among the principal books on hawking in the English language’ (Schwerdt I, 302).
STC 15267.7 and 15268.7.
