considering the great variety which exists in the character, shape, size, colour, and appearance of hawks, it may be easily supposed that they differ also in strength, speed, and general capability. perhaps the most notable of all points in which they are distinguished is in the matter of temper. not only will the young birds from different eyries be unlike in this respect, but the very same nest may produce one good-tempered hawk, and another sulky; one bold and confiding, another timid and suspicious; one vivacious and greedy after her food, and another dull, sluggish, and indifferent about her meals. nor are these discrepancies the result, apparently, of any different dieting or treatment. they exhibit themselves in eyesses in the very earliest days of hack, or even before, and usually continue for a long time, if not for life. no doubt a good-tempered hawk may, by falling into bad hands, be changed into a bad-tempered one; and some of those which seemed worst tempered when first caught, or when first taken up from hack, have by skilful management become quite amiable and well-behaved. but the amount of care and art required for the one sort is very different from that needed for the other; and very few beginners will be likely to achieve much success with a pupil which is thoroughly unmanageable by nature. sparrow-hawks, especially eyesses, are, as has already been said, the most naturally untamable of the hawks usually trained, with golden eagles a pretty good second; and the most amenable are hobbies and merlins, which often seem as if they rather liked being trained. nothing more need be said here about tempers than that with a troublesome pupil the trainer must be extra patient and extra cautious, and be continually on his guard against making a mistake. hawks are from their earliest days very good judges of character; and the more distrustful and apt to take offence any one of them may be, the more ? 256 ? determined must the falconer show himself to keep his temper and exhibit a philosophic calm in his demeanour. the petulance and restiveness which some hawks display vanish to an extraordinary extent if such ebullitions of temper are quietly ignored, and the offender, apparently wishing to make herself designedly disagreeable, finds herself treated as if she had played quite an amiable part. but the least sign of impatience or anger on the part of the falconer is noted by an ill-conditioned hawk, which thereupon seems to take a real delight in further aggravating her imprudent or hasty master.

there is a whole world of difference between the breaking of dogs and the breaking of hawks. the former know when they deserve punishment, and actually expect it. they respect a man for chastising them when they have done wrong, and rather despise him if he ignores the fault. a hawk, on the other hand, must never be punished, at least openly. to strike a hawk, or rate her, is to forfeit at once her respect, and what may be called her affection. a dog is a slave by immemorial habit. he knows intuitively that he is dependent upon man as a master. but the hawk, if she is worth her salt, knows nothing of the kind. turn her loose, and instead of starving or begging, like the lost dog, she will well shift for herself. she looks upon man as an ally rather than a master. she likes to be treated as a friend and equal, rather than as a dependant and a servant. falcons, especially,—that is, the females of the long-winged hawks,—are excessively proud, and even haughty; and are mortally offended if any indignity is offered them. but no matter what the hawk may be, the true policy is constant kindliness, or at least the outward semblance of it—a policy of rewards and not of punishments. endeavour always to impress upon her the idea that you are her very best friend; that her chief enjoyments in life are due to your foresight and assistance; that her food, her bath, the block on which she stands at ease, the well-padded, sheltered perch, and, last but not least, the opportunities for good and successful flights, are provided by you. then will she, in the language of the medi?val falconers, rejoice at the sight of you, and like no place so well as the fist. then will she fly the better when your voice cheers her on, and begin her meal more comfortably when you are standing or sitting by. it is well to treat the ill-tempered hawk somewhat as mrs. gummidge was treated, by making allowances. possibly she may some day surprise you by the display of unsuspected virtues.

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passing from the mental to the bodily characteristics of hawks, we find that occasionally two hawks are so alike that it is almost impossible to distinguish them except by their jesses, while others of the same kind and sex are so dissimilar that a stranger may find it difficult to believe that they do not belong to different species. there are, naturally enough, good and bad hawks of every shape, size, and colour; and it would be very rash to pronounce off-hand at the first sight of one that she is worth more than any other. nevertheless there are certain peculiarities which are found in the average of instances, taking many together, to belong more commonly to the best hawks, and others which in the great majority of cases betray the bad performer. these have always been remarked. they are mentioned in many ancient books, written in many languages; and there can be no doubt that after taking a good look at several individuals, an experienced judge will pick out those which he would prefer to possess if he had the choice. john barr told me upon this subject a rather pleasant story. he was travelling southwards with a large number of hawks by train, when at an intermediate station he met with the late prince dhuleep singh, who during a great part of his life was a most enthusiastic and successful falconer, by whom barr was at one time employed. the prince immediately inspected the hawks, which, i believe, were the same that were afterwards flown at epsom, and in the course of conversation pointed out in their order the hawks which were likely to do best. the falconer mentally noted the selection thus made, and afterwards found that it was accurately justified by the result.

it is somewhat curious that the same characteristics which in one species of hawks mark out an individual for admiration or the reverse, are mostly found to serve a like purpose in the other species. the following short remarks, therefore, unless when otherwise specified, may be taken as applying to hawks in general.

one of the very first points of which a critic will take note is the foot of a hawk. long toes are a great merit; and if they are slender and well separated at the bases, it will be all the better. nor is there anything mysterious or unnatural in this, for, the wider the area which the hawk’s foot can cover, the better chance she obviously has of catching hold with one talon or the other of the quarry at which she strikes. another notable characteristic of the best feet is that they fasten themselves ? 258 ? naturally with a clinging grip to the object of which they take hold, adhering so closely to a glove or any soft surface that they seem almost to be glued or stuck to it, and can only with difficulty be removed. in fact, the feet of some hawks, when they have taken a firm hold, can only be got off by picking the talons or claws out one after another with the hand. the hawks which thus clutch are almost always good killers in the field. many falconers attach some importance to the colour of a hawk’s feet. major fisher declares that a nestling peregrine with yellow feet is of little worth, and that the best colour is lead-grey or greenish grey. merlins in their early days often have very pale feet, but some of the best of them, when in high condition and fed daily on freshly-killed larks, will put on a bright yellow and even a somewhat orange hue. bright colours are undoubtedly a sign of health, though they may not be of strength, speed, or courage. the power which a hawk has in her feet seems usually to be a sure indication of corresponding vigour in the rest of her body.

the head of a specially good hawk is seldom big or round, but wedge-shaped, narrowing from the back rapidly towards the base of the beak, and rather flat on the top than dome-shaped; and there is a prominent eyebrow, with a keen eye, very full and bright. the shoulders come very high up, and are square, as they would be called in a man. there is a great deal of breadth in the upper back and in the breast, where the pectoral muscles are situated, and these muscles may be felt by the hand extending in a firm and ample bulk under the upper points of the wings. the wings themselves have also an appearance of size and strength, and each feather, if separated from the next, is seen to have a broad web and stout shaft. the same may be said of the tail feathers; but in these no extra length is desirable. a short tail with plenty of strength and solidity is better both for useful and ornamental purposes; and a hawk with a long flexible train like a kestrel is not to be preferred. a strong and fast hawk often folds her wings close together, so that the points cross one another quite high up over the tail. the nostrils of a hawk should be large, and the beak short. no indication can be derived from the general colour of the feathers, whether dark or light. as regards size, there is a prejudice against big falcons and small tiercels; but this does not hold good with regard to the short-winged hawks, in which strength is often the chief desideratum. in the case of peregrines a very large falcon is often clumsy; and the majority ? 259 ? of brilliant performers whose names have come down with honour in the annals of falconry, were rather under than over the average size. one of the most famous peregrines of this century (aurora by name) was of such an intermediate size that her owner for some considerable time mistook the sex. as for merlins, i do not remember any exceptionally big one that was not particularly stupid and remarkably slow. a specially small jack, however, is by no means invariably a duffer.

so much for the appearance of hawks when standing at ease on the block or perch. as soon as they are put on the wing the task of distinguishing between them in point of merit becomes very much more easy. the good hawk, when in good condition, has a buoyancy in the air which is wanting in the other. she flies with less effort, and as if she liked the exercise. it seems as natural to her to fly in a slanting line upwards as on a level. when she spreads her wings and sails along they are held out to the very farthest possible extent, and kept “flat”: that is to say, the tips are on a level with the back of the head, or even a little above it. the fast flier does not usually go along steadily through the air, moving, as a boating man would say, on an even keel. on a windy day one wing is often higher than the other, and her course swerves more or less from time to time as she utilises or counteracts with a marvellous art, not understood of men, the wayward pressure of the disturbed air. if you have to choose between a hack hawk, which makes her way along with regular beats of beautifully even wings, like a heron or a dove, and one which hurls herself forward in unexpected lines like a lapwing, by all means choose the latter. do not suppose that either lapwings or haggard peregrines go crooked by accident, or because they know no better. they can go straight enough if they choose, and will do so if it happens to be their game to play. but just as a skater, having only one skate on the ice, can go along if he moves in divergent lines but not if he attempts to keep a straight line, so it seems that by a sort of zigzaggy course more pace can be got up than by mere plodding straight-forward work. it is only after watching many hundreds of flights that a man can hope even to begin to understand how birds, both pursuer and pursued, man?uvre in the air, trimming their sails, so to speak, so as to increase to the utmost, the one the momentum of her stoop, and the other the speed and suddenness of its shift.

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haggards, and the cleverest younger falcons, fly more with the outer part of the wing than with the part nearest the body. they work, in fact, rather with the joint which in the human body is the wrist than by the movement of the whole arm from the shoulder. the saving of labour so effected is obvious enough. only, in order to fly thus, the shoulders must be thrown very far back, and the chest far more widely opened than it is by most eyesses. when a hawk in stretching her wings while standing on the block raises them far above her head, or when, having bated off, she hangs down from the fist, and, flopping with her wings, brings them so near together behind her that they seem almost about to touch, be sure that that hawk will fly better than one which carries her wings back to about a level with her back only. it is in stooping at the lure that you can judge best as to the merits of rook-hawks or lark-hawks, while, of course, those of game-hawks and duck-hawks are best tested by merely waiting on. in the latter and more simple case that hawk will be preferred which goes up quickest and to the highest pitch without raking away too far. but note, in stooping to the lure, which comes at it with the most headlong dash, and, having missed it, throws up soonest and highest. in a hard flight that hawk is most successful which after each stoop shoots up farthest, rebounding, as it were, from the unsuccessful stoop, and so keeping the command of the air, so that the quarry, even after the cleverest shift, still finds his adversary on a higher level than himself. the best hawks take great delight in stooping at the lure, and may be cheered when they make a brilliant cut at it, which will increase their excitement and zest. sometimes, getting to a distance from the falconer, they will rush in at their very best speed, and, on the lure being twitched aside, will shoot up almost in a perpendicular line; then, turning a sort of half-somersault, they will come down in almost the same perpendicular line with the way of the original impetus apparently still on them. a good “footer” at the lure is usually a good footer at her quarry; and good footing is one of the most deadly qualities any hawk can possess.

another remarkable thing about hawks is that those which are the best-tempered are generally the boldest, strongest, and best fliers. the reason is doubtless that bad temper proceeds to a large extent from timidity; and timidity of mind is, in nine cases out of ten, either due to bodily weakness, or at least connected with it. by bad temper i do not, of course, understand ? 261 ? mere anger. some of the hawks which are the fiercest and most furious when first taken out of the bow-net, prove the easiest to reclaim, and the most obedient when trained. sulkiness is the worst of the natural vices, and it is unfortunately common enough, not only in goshawks, which are notorious for it, but in all kinds of hawks. out of one nest i have had one merlin which was almost the best-tempered and one which was almost the worst-tempered that ever i saw. eyesses are more commonly sulky than passage hawks, and very often display signs of this defect in the days of hack. later on this develops into some more specific vice, which will perhaps need great care and patience to cure or modify. a short notice of the vices most prevalent amongst hawks will not be out of place, for the treatment of these disorders is almost as well worth understanding as that of their bodily ailments.

carrying is a fault with which the falconer will generally first become acquainted. the word is ill-chosen, or rather ill-adapted from the norman “charrier.” it would have been better if our ancestors had used such a term as “bolting” or “lifting,” so that no confusion need have arisen between the word carrying, as applied to holding a hawk on the fist, and as applied to the hawk’s action in taking up and flying away with her food. however, be the name what it may, the practice is one to which all hawks are more or less naturally addicted, although some in a very much greater degree than others. merlins and hobbies are the most notorious offenders, and wild-caught hawks of the long-winged kinds, though not always troublesome in this way, must be prevented for a long time from developing this habit, or they will infallibly become spoilt and lost. in the chapter on training, some directions are given for guarding against this predisposition, and curing the mischief when it has already arisen. but of all safeguards and remedies, by far the best is the habit already referred to of constantly instilling into the hawk the idea that your near presence is a thing to be desired, and not disliked. if a merlin or any other hawk shows the least inclination to carry when flying to the lure, or when being taken up from it, i would, for a time at least, never go near her on any occasion without taking a piece of food in the hand and giving it to her. by this means in a few days she will look out for your coming, and even listen for your step with all the pleasurable expectation that other tame animals await the coming of their feeder. and in taking her up have always on your hand a piece of food which is either more tempting or at least more easily ? 262 ? devoured than that which she has in her foot. let the tit-bit be a “mess of pottage”—but not necessarily a big one—for the immediate fruition of which the silly bird (as turbervile calls her) will barter away all the prospective advantages of a freshly-killed partridge or a dainty pigeon. these latter have to be plucked, mark you, before they can be eaten, whereas the bright red morsel in your hand can be begun at once, without any such trouble and delay.

in bad cases the vice of carrying may be corrected by a rather strong remedy, which, like all other hawking devices, has long been practised. before resorting to it, see that the lure which you are going to use, whether live or dead, is quite a light one, but very firmly fixed up, so that no part of it, or no part of the food with which it is garnished, can come away. then exercise your ill-behaved hawk in whatever way you prefer, and let her ultimately get the lure and have it on the ground in her foot. this lure will have a fairly long creance to it; and you will keep hold all the time of the end of the line. now, as your hawk is on the ground with her food, begin to make in as if you were approaching her after a real flight. you may, however, do so much less cautiously. if she bolts with her meal, let her go four or five yards, and then, with a sharp, sudden pull on the string, twitch the whole apparatus out of her foot, and let it come flying back towards you. what with the “way” that the hawk has on her, and the suddenness of your pull on the string, the lure, if properly fixed up, is bound to be jerked away; and my lady will have to trouble herself to turn round and come back towards you. but, of course, if you so arrange your lure that it will part, and the edible portion of it remain with the hawk, while the inedible comes back to you with the creance, you will have done ten times more harm than you expected to do good. a few lessons of this kind will often cure even a determined carrier. but i have known merlins which were cunning enough never to carry a light lure, knowing from experience that it would be a mere waste of time, and yet, when they had taken a wild lark, never doubted that they could make off with it if they liked.

there is a special sort of carrying to which many long-winged hawks are prone, and it is still more difficult to cure than the practice commonly so called. a hawk which is much fed on the fist, and little on the ground—especially on damp or uncomfortable ground—will, after taking her quarry and killing it, stand still on the ground, looking round with a restless air. and ? 263 ? after a while, thinking, apparently, that the spot where she is is not exactly the most convenient that could be found for a meal, will get up, pelt in hand, and fly off in search of one more desirable. this is done out of no feeling of mistrust or deliberate conviction that her prize is likely to be taken from her. thus the fact that the hawk is quite tame, and even likes your company at her dinner, is no safeguard against this vexatious habit. i have known a jack-merlin which was frequently easy to take up, bolt with a full-sized lark, and carry it, as if it weighed no more than a feather, for nearly half a mile, searching for a place which was good enough for my lord to picnic on, and disdaining several flat mounds which lay in his way, and which would have formed luxurious tables. the same hawk once carried a lark about six hundred yards in one direction, and then, seeing no specially attractive ground on that side, came back the whole way, and, flying past at about fifty yards distance, settled on a rough, dirty heap two or three hundred yards in a different direction. had he gone straight on for the same length of time in the original direction, he would either have been lost and left out, or only found by accident after a search of long duration. sometimes a hawk, too dainty to feed on the ground amongst prickly stubble or tall, wet turnip-leaves, will go off with her quarry into a tree, which is not a particularly comfortable dining-place, but which she chooses to prefer. mr. st. quintin had a fine falcon which persisted in this vice, until he actually got rid of her.

other hawks, especially merlins, delight in going off to ricks to plume and eat their quarry. there are not many trees in places where the best merlins are flown, but there are always plenty of ricks. sometimes it is possible to climb these structures; and many a time has the falconer, if a small man, been hoisted up on the shoulders of some stalwart friend, or, if he is stalwart himself, has given a back to some smaller man, or even a man and a boy, ladderwise. often, however, the rick is unclimbable. then what is to be done? for you cannot drag a ladder for miles over the downs. the surest way is to carry a long coil of string, with a bullet at one end. stand at one side of the rick on which your hawk is quietly and contentedly plucking her victim; sling the bullet over the top of the rick, and as nearly over the head of the hawk herself as your skill and the wind will allow. then, if you have an attendant, let him take hold of the end of the string which has no bullet attached, and which has not gone flying over the rick. if you have no companion, peg down this last-mentioned end at a good distance ? 264 ? from the rick. then walk to the other side and pick up the bullet. pulling the string taut, drag it sideways, so that the line scrapes along the top of the rick, and, coming to the hawk’s self-chosen dining-place, sweeps the whole affair, dinner, hawk, and all, away. if the line should get entangled in the quarry, so much the better; you can pull it down to the ground. if not, the hawk may, of course, carry to another rick, and recommence the same trick. but after repeated scrapings-off she generally gets sick of the worry, and condescends to go down to the ground.

a simpler and more unceremonious way of interfering with the offender is to pelt her with clods of earth, or even flints, until one of them either hits her or goes so near that she thinks it advisable to decamp. i have known a hawk sit so stolidly on a rick that though flints went within two inches on either side of her, she took no notice, and went on eating. others, old offenders, know as well as their master what happens when they go to rick. they would be rather surprised if they did not see him bending down as he makes his way towards them, collecting suitable missiles, and if he did not begin at once the familiar sport of hawk-stoning. such hawks may be called rick-hawks; and they are about as trying to the temper as anything which the falconer has to contend with. they are, however, not quite so bad as tree-hawks. a falconer who is possessed of one of these last-named treasures must add to his other accomplishments that of being a good shot with a small stone.

what remedy there is for the hawk which carries out of pure caprice it is not easy to say. in the first place, she must be habituated to take some of her food on the ground—tirings anyhow, which hitherto have perhaps been taken on the block or the perch. let them be fastened down by a peg or a weight, sometimes on damp ground, sometimes even in prickly stubbles, so that the over-dainty hawk may learn that eating on the ground is not so bad after all. then she ought to be flown sharp-set, so that, being in a hurry for her food, she should be glad enough to pluck it quickly and on the first place where she alights. give this sort of hawk as large a quantity of flying as ever you can. fly her, if you have the choice, at the most difficult quarry, and in the most difficult places. never mind so much if she succeeds or not. it is better to lose a few rooks or partridges than to lose your hawk. fly her, therefore, as often and as hard as you can. never mind whether her score or her average is bad. it is better to make a poor score than to think your hawk ? 265 ? is a good one when she isn’t. a good deal of the restlessness which makes a hawk flit about with her quarry is due to her being short of exercise. if, therefore, you can make your hawk fly more, either at the lure or in the field, than she has a mind to, she is much less likely to go fooling about before attending to the business of feeding herself. of course it is very difficult to do this, as twenty or thirty miles more or less is a mere exercise canter for a peregrine. but many trained hawks get a great deal less than this in a whole day.

there is a device which i should like to see tried with a carrying hawk, but it requires some patience and good temper. get some stuffed birds of the proper kind, at which you mean to fly your hawk; use them, unweighted, as lures, and when the hawk has taken them and come down, let go the string and approach her cautiously with food in hand as if you were making in to her after killing a real bird. if she bolts, let her go and make what she can of the stuffed bird. about twenty minutes after you will have her back, furious, but perhaps less ready to bolt away from the food in your hand—a sadder, but possibly a wiser, hawk.

when a hawk, being carried on the fist bareheaded, ready to be thrown off at quarry, keeps jumping off in a tiresome way at nothing, ten to one she is not quite ready to fly. better put on her hood and let her wait for an hour or so, and go on with another hawk, if you have one to fly, and, if not, light a pipe. hurry no man’s hawks, not even your own.

it would be rather a misnomer to call soaring a vice. this, which is one of the most beautiful accomplishments of the wild falcon, is the natural mode of taking daily exercise. to see it in perfection, look at a wild peregrine or a wild hobby—you have there what enthusiasts describe as the poetry of motion. all hawks, eagles and vultures soar by nature. it is their way of stretching their wings, and of taking the air where it is cool and fresh. kestrels do a sort of humble soaring in search of their food, and hobbies actually feed themselves, like swifts, on the wing. to say, therefore, that a trained hawk which adopts this orthodox method of keeping herself fit is thereby committing a fault, is rather hard upon her. nevertheless it is a very vexatious habit, when over-indulged in, and, speaking from a practical point of view, is not to be too much encouraged. hobbies, when flown in the middle of the day, even sharp-set, will stay up constantly for a quarter of an hour and even more, taking little apparent notice of the swung lure, or at the most ? 266 ? striking at it without catching hold, or at least coming down with it to the ground. to do them justice, they seldom go far away, but often look as if they meant to do so, which, indeed, they occasionally do, especially at migrating times. but a peregrine which has taken to the soar often seems so engrossed in the pleasant occupation as to forget all about mundane affairs, and, sailing along in ever-widening circles, drifts farther and farther down-wind, until the falconer, if unmounted, can keep her in view no longer. then, when she is beginning to tire of her amusement, and to remember that she has, after all, a crop to fill, she will very likely wing her way back to where she last saw the falconer wistfully swinging her despised lure. but what if an unlucky pigeon then heaves in sight? or if some unsuspecting yokel puts up a partridge or a rook? there is nothing to prevent her from having a shot at it: and, if she kills, good-bye to my lady for that day. if you find her, it will be more by good luck than anything else.

hawks will go soaring because they are short of exercise, because they feel hot from insufficient bathing, or because, not being particularly hungry, they prefer a few minutes’ free roaming about to immediately dining. consequently a hawk which has shown herself fond of the practice and slow at coming to the dead lure, should be offered a bath whenever she is at all likely to take it—once a day, in very hot weather. she should have lots of flying and stooping to the lure, for, as she is fond of the upper air, there is the less chance of her hanging about round the falconer and spoiling her pitch. finally, she should be a bit keen after her food before she is put on the wing. soaring and waiting on are analogous things, or rather they are the same with a difference. the best game-hawks, which wait on mountains high, are soaring as they do so; that is, the movement of the wings is the same, but the difference is that the waiter-on is, as it were, anchored to a fixed point below—the man or the dog, whereas the soarer is merely floating about like a yacht which has no particular destination.

the vice of raking away differs only from that of soaring away by the fact that it may be done at any height. half-trained hawks, before they have done any real work in the field, are very apt to wait on in the wrong place. they know as much as that they are expected to keep within sight of the falconer, but not that they ought to be directly overhead; and, through laziness, or because they prefer stooping at the lure up-wind, they allow themselves to drift away to lee. hardly ? 267 ? have they come up level with the man than they at once fall back on the wind, lowering their pitch, if pitch it can be called, so that for all useful purposes their attendance is a mere sham, and they might as well be on the falconer’s glove. repeating this idiotic performance in the field, they are some hundreds of yards to leeward, and at a low elevation, when the grouse or partridge get up, and a stern-chase ensues, in which the quarry, going up-wind, gets the best of it. for this annoying vice there is no direct remedy. experience may be expected to teach the young hawk better. one plan is to let loose pigeons, while the hawk is so waiting on, so that, after missing some, by reason of raking and low flying, and perhaps catching others when flying properly, she may understand at last how success is to be had.

checking is a crime to which we are not now so much exposed as were the old falconers. bird life is not so abundant now, at least in england, that a hawk is confronted often with an embarras de richesses, and leaves her legitimate quarry for a stray bird of a different species. eyesses, indeed, if kept to one quarry, will often hardly be induced to pursue any other. passage hawks are more ready to check at birds which cross their path. it would be rather too much to expect a haggard falcon, which in her time has struck down birds of fifty different kinds, to discriminate very nicely between a plump partridge and a fat wood-pigeon when providence threw either within reach of an easy stoop. it is when a passage hawk has been flown at rooks in the spring, and afterwards at game in the game season, that there is the chief danger of checking. as long as the sable quarry is alone attempted the risk is not great. the hawk is flown out of the hood at quarry actually in sight. it is only when that quarry has saved itself that the temptation to check occurs, and at that moment there are, or ought to be, lures waving near at hand. but encourage the rook-hawk to become a game-hawk, and the case is altogether changed. she has to go up alone, with nothing particular in view, and wait aloft till the falconer springs her quarry. moreover, she knows now that rooks are not the only lawful game. she is at full liberty to go at grouse; and, if grouse, why not wood-pigeons and house-pigeons, gulls, or curlew? why not anything which is desirable, and which "tempts her roving eyes"?

the besetting sin of the checking peregrine is the chase of pigeons, wild and tame. often, it must be admitted, this sin is ? 268 ? the outcome of the falconer’s own action. has he not himself used a pigeon as a live lure? has he not, when teaching his pupil to wait on, let loose a pigeon with the express intention that she should fly it? if he has never had occasion to do so in training his passage hawk he has been exceptionally lucky. as regards pigeons, it is generally pretty easy to break peregrines of checking at them as soon as they have once begun to fly at game. to achieve this feat get a good number of very good pigeons—say a dozen, the faster the better; make the hawk wait on at a short distance—say 600 yards—from some covert in which the pigeon, if he can get as far, will be safe from pursuit; then, while the hawk is waiting on that side of you which is farthest from the covert, let go one of the pigeons. the hawk will start, but the pigeon, if a good one, will manage to make the covert; the hawk will throw up, and, if all is well, come down to your dead lure. repeat this performance, always making as sure as you can that the pigeon will save himself, until your pupil has got sick of the whole business, and at last refuses to go for such disappointing quarry. if you can put in, between whiles, an easy flight at a grouse or partridge, and reward the hawk well upon it, the contrast will be all the more striking, and she will begin to have a settled conviction that game-hawking is capital fun, whereas pigeon-hawking is a fraud. it is obvious that a somewhat similar trick may be used with regard to other birds besides pigeons—flying the hawk in impossible places at those which you don’t want her to pursue, and in easy places at those which you do.

some hawks, which ought to know better, from laziness or want of condition, will not remain on the wing, but go off, after a few turns in the air, to a tree or to the ground, and there sit waiting for the lure, or till the spirit moves them to stir. this is disheartening conduct, quite unworthy of a ladylike or gentlemanly hawk, and disgraceful in a falcon-gentle. yet so it is that many of these high-born dames, and not a few tiercels also of noble birth, are so lost to a sense of their own dignity that they give way to this degrading weakness, and demean themselves to the level of a base-born short-wing. what is to be done with them? various devices have been tried with varying success. in the first place, as the hawk behaves in an ignoble manner, she cannot complain if you treat her in ignoble wise. you may therefore ride at her as she sits on the ground, and force her to get up, or you may throw clods at her, and drive her out of her tree; but the surest plan—only it requires ? 269 ? time and patience—is to let her cure herself. light a pipe and sit down in a comfortable place, if such there be, and leave the sinner alone until the spirit does move her to stir. at some time or other, varying from five minutes to five hours, she will want the lure badly enough. then let her come for it. keep her waiting on or stooping at the lure till she has had a good dose of it, and if she goes off to perch again, wait again till she will work for her living. show her, in fact, that in coming to the lure she is conferring no great favour on you, as she seemed to imagine, but rather that the boot is on the other leg. next time it is more than probable that she will work a little rather than go fasting, when she might have a good meal at once. if you have time and patience to read her a few such lessons she may gradually be brought to exhibit some activity. but give her a dose as well. for liver has probably something to do with the matter, as well as mere laziness.

a hawk which is hood-shy is a plague to you and to herself. very few hawks exhibit this vice except through the trainer’s fault. but trainers are not all good hooders; and a few bungling and unsuccessful attempts at hooding will make even the best-natured hawk hate the very sight of the hood. if, therefore, the beginner is not clever at the art, let him practise on a kestrel. or, if he will have one of the better hawks, let him get a skilful hand to break her to the hood. to hood a hawk which is already broken is a comparatively easy matter; but it is the nature of a hawk, as of any other creature, to dislike being blindfolded, and the wonder is that hawks can be made to submit to it as readily as they do. occasionally a hawk has such a rooted objection to the proceeding that the cleverest man never succeeds in quite overcoming it. vesta, already mentioned, was hood-shy, though in good hands; but even then the objection felt by the sufferer can only by a perversion of terms be rightly called a vice. hood-shyness, even in a pronounced form, has often been cured, and, as has already been said, a hood-shy hawk cannot be considered fully trained. whenever the hawk is difficult to hood, she should be handled constantly, and the trainer should almost always have a hood in his right hand. the actual condition of being hooded is not disagreeable to many hawks—it is the indignity and discomfort involved in the process of putting on the apparatus that give rise to the trouble. the smaller the hawk, the more difficult she is to hood; and the mischief is not only that the hawk’s feathers are in danger whenever she is hooded against her will, but also ? 270 ? that her temper is ruffled, and the relations between her and her trainer become strained.

one of the most annoying errors into which a hawk can fall, is a belief in her own vocal powers. no hawk ever has at all a musical voice, and the exercise of it, even in moderation, can quite well be dispensed with. unfortunately, most eyesses which have been taken very young from the nest develop quite early in life a tendency to cry out. when there are several of them together they often catch the habit from one another, and becoming worse as their feathers come down, are by the time they are ready to fly confirmed “screamers.” no cure has, i believe, been discovered for this vice, except that of turning them out to hack, which in nine cases out of ten proves successful. i have several times known a family of hawks when first turned out, to keep up for the first day or two an almost incessant screeching, and yet i have taken up the same birds at the end of hack completely cured. generally, as soon as a young hawk finds that she can expend all her superfluous energy in flying about, and that no sort of attention is ever paid to her eloquence, she gets tired of indulging in the weakness. i know, however, of a case where hobbies too early taken were actually lost at hack, and never came at all either to lure or hack board, and yet continued to scream when quite wild for at least more than a week afterwards.

passage hawks, i believe, never scream. it is often supposed that no wild hawks scream, and this, i think, is as a rule true. but i have heard young wild kestrels scream for a few days after they could fly, and one lot of wild merlins, though they were fully summed, and had probably been already driven away by the parents to shift for themselves, were what may be called bad screamers. they would scream while soaring, ten minutes at a time, and at such a height that the sound could only just be heard. it is true that there were trained merlins about at the time, and possibly they may have been calling to them. it is quite a common thing for hawks which are entirely free from the vice to call out when they see another hawk unexpectedly. they will do it even when they see their own likenesses in a looking-glass.

if the hawk, after being well hacked, still retains vestiges of the bad habit, there is yet another chance. the flying and killing wild quarry has often a magical effect in curing this vice, which would seem, like some other malpractices, to be largely the result of idleness. still there are instances where, in spite of ? 271 ? all the advantages which an eyess enjoys, she will persist in screaming. some of them will go so far as to scream with the hood on, though this is rare. as a rule a screaming hawk is not a good performer. and she ought to be a very good one, in order to make it worth the falconer’s while to be plagued with her. if you turn her adrift you may possibly, after a few days, catch her again and find her cured; and if not, you will not have suffered a very severe loss.

a still more disheartening fault is that of “refusing.” people who know nothing at all about falconry are apt to suppose that when once you have “tamed” your hawk, and can call her back to you when you like, the only thing which remains to be done is to walk with her into a field, show her a bird, and let her go. that she should fail to pursue it is a contingency which does not present itself to their minds. it is, however, unfortunately one that constantly occurs, not only with eyesses, but also with the boldest of wild-caught hawks. the novice gets his hawk into a fine state of obedience. she will come a long distance to the lure as soon as it is produced. but when the long-expected day arrives for the first flight at a wild quarry, and perhaps an expectant field of friends turns out to see the sport, the wild bird is put up, the hawk is thrown off with a lusty shout, and, without taking the smallest notice of her intended victim, goes quietly on her way either to wait on for the lure or to take perch in a pleasant spot. even when hawks have been entered, and have begun to fly in earnest, you cannot be absolutely sure when you cast them off whether they will be in the humour to do their best. they may begin the flight in apparently faultless style, and go up bravely in the most orthodox of rings after the ringing quarry. and then as they seem to be getting on terms with their rook or lark, you may see the fatal spreading of their wings, and have the painful conviction forced upon you that they have shown the white feather and thrown up the game. this vice—of “flying tail to tail,” as the old falconers term it—is a most disheartening one for a beginner to meet with; so much so, that some old writers regard such a hawk as hopeless, and advise giving her away to a friend! i have found it strongly developed in the only two hobbies i ever tried to train; and a like result has, to my knowledge, followed in several other instances. these hawks have made rings and followed a wild lark up. but they have never taken even so much as a bad one! i had a merlin which out of 41 flights killed 40 larks. but the one occasion when she missed she ? 272 ? refused—or at least left the lark in the air. possibly this was because she was flown too soon after the last flight. but the disgrace remains recorded against her name in the quarry-book.

to guard against this sad catastrophe you must encourage your hawk; that is, you must keep up her courage, which is the thing most severely tested in a ringing flight. you must feed her well; yet keep her digestion in perfect order. and you must strengthen her muscles by constant hard exercise. it is not enough for her to go out and kill a couple of indifferent rooks in two or three short easy flights. if there is not enough good quarry—difficult quarry—to be found for her, you can give her a good spell of stooping at the lure, or in the case of a game-hawk, a long waiting on when the wind is highest, probably about midday. she must have tirings galore. and if she has refused once, fly her sharp-set the next time. hawks will refuse through being too fat as well as through being too lean. avoid, if possible, giving your best hawks bad quarry, or your worst hawks any that are too good. the former may refuse a specially good one because they are accustomed to take duffers, and the latter may refuse because they have not yet gained confidence in their own powers. goshawks are capricious creatures; they will refuse a leveret, and half an hour later fly well at a full-grown hare. other hawks may refuse if flown too early in the day, and yet do a fine performance if tried again later on. with a hawk that persistently refuses you should try every remedy that your ingenuity will suggest as likely to inspire her with a proper sense of her duty. try feeding up; try flying her very hungry. physic her for liver, with one prescription after another. and if all fail, give the hawk away, or, better still, cast her loose in an open country where the keepers don’t shoot hawks. she then will have the choice between working and starving; and she will very soon know how to decide the question.

the last, and in one way the most serious, vice which has to be referred to, is that of “running cunning.” i do not think it is common, if even it prevails at all among passage hawks; and what there is to be said about it in the case of eyesses, has been said in the chapter on lost hawks, à propos of ruy lopez.

we have thus a list of seven deadly sins, or so-called sins, to which trained hawks are prone—carrying (better called lifting), refusing, checking, perching, hood-shyness, screaming, and running cunning. there are a few minor faults which hardly amount to more than peccadilloes, and deserve only a passing ? 273 ? notice. sometimes a hawk will keep bating off in a tiresome way. this is when she is strong and well, but short of exercise, and perhaps a bit feverish. the remedy is simply to hood her up. it is far less annoyance to her to stand hooded than to fatigue or worry herself by constant tugging and straining at her jesses. but, as a matter of fact, for hawks to stand hooded for any reasonable time is no annoyance to them at all, after they have worn the hood a few times. if it were, we should find that they suffered from it in health, strength, temper, or somehow, which is not known to be the case. merlins, however, and male sparrow-hawks should be left unhooded more than other hawks. and they must not be expected to fly, like peregrines, immediately the hood is removed. the same cause will induce hawks sometimes to pick and pull at their jesses or at the covering of the perch, or even at the glove. the remedy is to smear the jesses or perch or glove with aloes or some bitter preparation, which is distasteful to them, but will do no harm if they like to go on picking, but rather good.

it has been said (p. 32) that goshawks and sparrow-hawks cannot be flown in casts (i.e. two of them together). this is on account of the great probability that they will fight or “crab.” there is also, in the case of long-winged hawks, some danger that the like trouble may arise, especially if one or both of the individuals thrown off has a bad temper of her own. accordingly, it is often well that each hawk intended to be used for double flights should be first flown single a few times, until she has become keen after her quarry, so that she may be too intent upon the pursuit of it to quarrel with her colleague, when flown double. but eyesses which have been well hacked and well reclaimed are seldom addicted to this vice, which is still more rare in passagers. as to the difficulties attending double flights with merlins, see the remarks made at page 141; and as to entering a young hawk with the assistance of an older one as “make-hawk,” see pages 113, 142.

some hawks, especially the wild-caught, will not bathe, but after tasting the water in the bath, and perhaps making as if they would go in, hesitate for a long time, and at last jump back to their block. some will not even “bowse,” or sip the water. this is vexatious, for bathing undoubtedly improves the feathers besides merely cleaning them, and keeps the hawks free from parasites and from small attacks of feverishness. it also cleans their feet, and makes them more hardy and robust. the best plan in such cases is to see that the bath-water is never too ? 274 ? cold, to let a hawk which bathes well bathe in the sight of the recusant, and to keep the bath on fine days within reach of the latter. such a hawk should also have her feet bathed now and then while on the perch; and her beak should be kept clear of any scraps or stains which may remain on it after feeding. this wiping of the beak should, however, be done in any case, if the hawk is not careful herself about feaking, or rubbing the refuse off her mandibles.

such is the rather long list of faults and vices. let us not end up the chapter with these, but hark back to the virtues, and remind the reader that these are also great. speed, courage, mounting, and footing: these may be called the cardinal virtues. some hawks are born with some or all of them: some achieve them; while upon others—well, they must be thrust. the mode of treatment suggested in the preceding pages has been found by long experience to be the best for developing the good qualities in a hawk as well as for eliminating the bad. exercise and practice are the essential requisites. nature is then working on the trainer’s side. every hawk should be made as often as possible to earn her food by hard work. and every hawk should be encouraged to take a pleasure in her work and a pride in herself. exercise means speed; and speed means success. with success will naturally come courage; and excellence in mounting and footing is no more than the inevitable result of proper practice in the right sort of flights. all hawks in the wild state can kill many sorts of quarry. all trained hawks, therefore, should be able to take at least one. but if any man expects to become a falconer off-hand, he will be disappointed. if he will begin moderately, with one hawk,—a kestrel for choice,—and train her single-handed and completely, he will soon be able to attempt much greater things.