_Inde alias volucres mimóque infecta rubenti Crura_----
But seems more agreeable unto some kind of _Hæmantopus_ or Redshank; and so the _Nysus_ to have been some kind of Hawk, which delighteth about the Sea and Marishes, where such prey most aboundeth, which sort of Hawk while _Scaliger_ determineth to be a Merlin, the French Translatour warily expoundeth it to be some kind of Hawk.
_Nycticorax_ we may leave unto the common and verbal translation of a _Night Raven_, but we know no proper kind of Raven unto which to confine the same, and therefore some take the liberty to ascribe it unto some sort of Owls, and others unto the Bittern; which Bird in its common Note, which he useth out of the time of coupling and upon the Wing, so well resembleth the croaking of a Raven that I have been deceived by it.
While _Cicada_ is rendred a _Grashopper_, we commonly think that which is so called among us to be the true _Cicada_; wherein, as we have elsewhere declared,[260] there is a great mistake: for we have not the _Cicada_ in _England_, and indeed no proper word for that Animal, which the French nameth _Cigale_. That which we commonly call a Grashopper, and the French _Saulterelle_ being one kind of Locust, so rendred in the Plague of _Ægypt_, and, in old Saxon named _Gersthop_.
I have been the less accurate in these Answers, because the Queries are not of difficult Resolution, or of great moment: however, I would not wholly neglect them or your satisfaction, as being, Sir,
In vain you expect much information, _de Re Accipitraria_, of Falconry, Hawks or Hawking, from very ancient Greek or Latin Authours; that Art being either unknown or so little advanced among them, that it seems to have proceeded no higher than the daring of Birds: which makes so little thereof to be found in _Aristotle_, who onely mentions some rude practice thereof in _Thracia_; as also in _Ælian_, who speaks something of Hawks and Crows among the Indians; little or nothing of true Falconry being mention'd before _Julius Firmicus_, in the days of _Constantius_, Son to _Constantine_ the Great.
Yet if you consult the accounts of later Antiquity left by _Demetrius_ the Greek, by _Symmachus_ and _Theodosius_, and by _Albertus Magnus_, about five hundred years ago, you, who have been so long acquainted with this noble Recreation, may better compare the ancient and modern practice, and rightly observe how many things in that Art are added, varied, disused or retained in the practice of these days.