ponds have long been dried up and built over; it is there, however,
where, during excavations, some very fine examples of the old bone
skates have been found.

Relics of Old Sport.

Among the relics of old sport met with are the curious and often
beautifully embroidered hoods of white leather used in the days of
hawking. These pretty little hoods, which were placed over the head of
the hawk when carried on the wrist to the hunting field, were often
embroidered in panels and furnished with braces for tying round the
hawk's head. In the British Museum there is a curious silver lock-ring
for a hawk engraved with arms and owner's name, apparently of
seventeenth-century workmanship. No doubt the real purport of such
curios is often overlooked, for not infrequently hawks' hoods have been
found amongst old dolls' clothing, having been given to children in
later years as playthings.

Guns, Pistols, and Flasks.

Eastern weapons have been brought over to this country in large numbers,
some of them very ancient. It is said that among some of the Arab tribes
it is no uncommon thing to meet with swords and daggers of antique form,
richly damascened, and sometimes with jewelled hilts, made a thousand
years or more ago, and a few years ago Crusaders' relics could be met
with in the East. Many of these knives have silica blades, some of the
handles being of jade. Those of grey jade are often pique with gold,
others, of ivory, being inlaid with jewels.

There is not very much to interest in old guns of English make, for few
found in houses date back beyond the commencement of the nineteenth
century. Among them, however, are flint-locks and here and there an old
wheel-lock. The pistols met with among household curios are often
handsome and have been preserved in leather cases, carefully stowed
away. Some of them record the days of duelling, others the dangers of
the road, when highway robbers lurked in every wood, and many a family
coach was waylaid and its occupants robbed of their jewels and their
purses of gold. To those interested in sporting, and familiar with the
breech-loading guns of the present day, much interest attaches to the
old powder flasks which were once necessary accompaniments of sportsmen.
There are many beautifully engraved, embossed, and decorated flasks in
museums, some of the early seventeenth-century specimens being made of
boxwood, others of ivory, frequently ornamented with hunting scenes. In
Fig. 92