Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/22

12 case a favoured few are sure to get all the work, and the others, possibly equally good if they had fair play, are spoiled for want of exercise. The larger hawks may be kept in health and working order for several years 15 or 20 barring accidents. The writer has known peregrines, shaheens, and goshawks to reach ages between 15 and 20 years. Goshawk^, however, never fly well after 4 or 5 seasons, when they will no longer take difficult quarry ; they may be used at rabbits as long as they live. Shaheens may be seen in the East at an advanced age, killing wild-fowl beautifully. The shaheen is a falcon of the peregrine type, which does not travel, like the peregrine, all over the world. It appears that the jerfalcons also may be worked to a good age. Old Simon Latham tells us of these birds, "I myself have known one of them an excellent Hearuor, and to continue her good- nesse very near twentie yeeres, or full out that time." It is hardly likely that falconry will ever recover such a position as to be reckoned once more among the national sports of England. Yet in these days of breech-loading and battue shooting, when even a well-broken retriever is a rarity, from want of time to see him work or to give him fair play, there are still some sportsmen who are, to quote the words of the authors of our best modern book on fal conry, in the dedication of their work, " those who love sport for its own sake, and in the pursuit of it are willing to tread in the footsteps of their forefathers." The work just quoted is Falconry in the British Isles, by Salvin and Jjrodrick. A work to which we are very largely indebted for information regarding the past history of falconry and its practice in foreign countries is Schlegel s Traite de Fauconnerie. This magnificent book, in the words of a very able writer in the Quarterly Review for July 1875, " is a worthy monument of the noble art it describes ; the extent and minuteness of the learned author s anti quarian resources are only equalled by his practical knowledge of the details of modern usage, and the result is such as may be ex pected from such a combination." It contains a very large list of works on falconry in languages of all the principal countries of the Old World. Other modern works are Practical Falconry, by the ]{ev. G. E. Freeman, an excellent little book ; Falconry, its Claims, History, and Practice, by Freeman and Salvin ; Observations on Hawking, by Sir J. S. Sebright, Bart.; and a pamphlet entitled Notes on the Falconid(c used in India in Falconry, by Lieutenant- Colonel Delme Kadcliffe. Perhaps the most useful of the old works are The Bookc of Faulconric or Han-king, by George Turber- ville, 1575, and TJie Faulcon s Lure and Cure, by Simon Latham, 1633. (E. D. R.) FALERII, an ancient and powerful city of Etruria, the capital of the Falisci, who occupied the region between Soracte and Monte Cimino. The affinity of the Falisci with the Etrurians is both asserted and denied ; in his toric times Falerii at least appears as a city of Etrurian sympathies, and it probably belonged to the Etrurian League. It supported the people of Veii against the Romans, and used its utmost efforts to rouse the other Etrurians against the common foe. After the reduction of Veii the Faliscans saw themselves exposed to the fury of the Roman arms, and after a siege from Camillas they were obliged to surrender their city. The episode of the traitor schoolmaster and the generosity of the Roman commander need only be mentioned to be generally remembered. From this time Falerii continued sometimes at peace, sometimes at war with Rome, till on the conclusion of the first Punic war it rose in open rebellion ; after a short resistance it was taken and destroyed, and its inhabitants were forced to select a site for a new city in a less inaccessible and defen sible position. The Falerii thus founded was enrolled in the Horatian tribe, and under the triumvirs received a mili tary colony. ^ The old city continued, probably from its re ligious associations, to retain a small population, and this in all likelihood explains the fact that Strabo speaks of two towns, one Falerii and the other Faliscum. Ovid in his Amores relates how he ascended by a toilsome path to the F temple of the Faliscan Juno, a goddess, who, according to inscriptions, bore the title of Quuris (or "of the spear ), and, if we may trust the tradition, had young girls immolated on her altar. In the Middle Ages the inhabitants of the Roman town, invited by the impregnable position of the earlier site, returned and built the town now known as Civita Castellana. The ruins they left behind them are now occupied by the small hamlet of Santa Maria di Fallen. They consist mainly of the city walls, which stand from 35 to 55 feet high, and are of excellent architecture and strengthened by square towers. Within the ancient area are the remains of a convent in the Lombard style, and we learn from a bull of Benedict IX. that the town continued a separate see from Castellana till 1033. Excavations made at Santa Maria di Fallen by Angelo Jannoni Sebastian! are reported in the Annali dell Inst. di Cor. Arch, di Roma, 1860, and the Bullettiiio 1S64 , see also Noel Desverger s Llhrurie, 1862-04. FALERNUS AGER, the name of a district in the northern part of Campania. The term has sometimes a wide and sometimes a restricted signification, being used with reference to the whole of the fertile plain between the Massican (now Mandragone) hills and the river Vul- turuus, but more commonly as denoting that portion of the plain lying at the foot of the Massican hills between the rivers Yulturnus and Savo, and celebrated for its wines. In the time of Horace these were reputed to be the best of all Italy, but in the time of Pliny their reputation had begun to decline, and they were supplanted in general estimation by those produced in the adjoining Ager Statanus. Before it passed into the hands of the Romans, in 340 B.C., the whole district formed part of the C apuan territory. In 217 B.C. it was desolated by the Carthaginian general Maharbal. FALIERO, MARINO (1274-1355)^ doge of Venice, was born in 1274, In 1346 he commanded the Venetian forces at the siege of Zara, where, being attacked by Louis the Great of Hungary with a force of 80,000 men, he totally defeated them, inflicting a loss of 8000, and compelling him to abandon all further attempts to raise the siege, which was concluded shortly afterwards by the surrender of the defenders at discretion. As commander of the Venetian fleet lie also gained several victories and captured Capo d Istria. He was elected doge llth September 1354. His reign was short, and it had both a disastrous commence ment and a tragic close. Very soon after his election the Venetian fleet was captured by the Genoese, and hardly had he concluded a four months truce with Genoa, when a very trivial incident occurred which resulted in his arrest and execution. It would appear that, though an able general and prudent statesman, Faliero possessed a temper so choleric that when he was provoked reason for a time almost forsook him. On the occasion of the usual court feast on Shrove Thursday, a young nobleman named Michele Steno, perhaps excited by wine, took some liber ties with one of the maids of honour, and the doge on that account caused him to be ignominiously expelled from the hall. Provoked at such a public affront Steno went to the hall of audience and wrote on the doge s chair the following words Marini FaHcri dalla bella moylie, altri la godeedegli lamantiene (Marino Faliero, the husband of the beautiful wife ; others kiss her, he keeps her). The author of the insult was soon discovered and arrested, but the council sentencing him only to two months imprisonment, the doge resolved to have adequate revenge, and with this view formed a conspiracy to seize all the nobles and lead ing citizens, and to make himself despot of Venice. The plot being, however, discovered a short time before the day fixed on, the doge and principal conspirators were arrested, and were executed on the 17th April 1355.