TRAINED GOSHAWK “GAIETY GAL”OWNED BY MR. A. NEWALL
TRAINED GOSHAWK “GAIETY GAL”OWNED BY MR. A. NEWALL
Mr. Riley trains his own hawks, and, for convenience and for saving time in an enclosed country, has sometimes used a lure. He keeps them as hard at work as he can. He has much difficulty in finding enough quarry for them, and is much troubled by poultry. But for these causes the bags made would have been even much larger than they were. He has a great preference for haggards, whose style of flying he considers very far superior to that of the eyesses. Tostin, especially, used to shoot up some feet when he left the fist; and this seemed to have a demoralising effect on the partridges. He hit them so hard that the blow could be heard a long way off. When he was unsuccessful, instead of coming straight back, he would throw up two or three hundred feet, moving his head from side to side as he flew. Sometimes he would come down upon partridges on the ground, so as to put them up all round him, and then, if there was no friendly hedge at hand, he was pretty sure to have one. It was no doubt a great feat to get him fully trained in so short a time after his capture as fifty-six days. Pity his brilliant career was so soon ended by death! Almost all the partridges taken, by one hawk or the other, were captured in fair flight, without any routing about in hedges or other covert.
To show what goshawks will do when well worked, I may mention that Mr. St. Quintin’s falconer (now the head falconer of the Old Hawking Club) took out his female goshawk in November 1885, and gave her seventeen chances at rabbits lying out in the grass. She caught them all, but being a bit blown, let the last one go. Sir Henry Boynton’s goshawk, Red Queen, on 2nd December 1895, killed as many as twenty-four rabbits in one day.
The illustration is a portrait of “Gaiety Gal,” the goshawk which, while she was owned by Mr. Arthur Newall and flown by him, killed in one season fifty-five hares, nineteen rabbits, two pheasants, one partridge, one wood-pigeon, one Norfolk plover, one landrail—total, eighty head. This fine hawk was afterwards sold for £20; and the vendor always considered that he had been a loser by the bargain.
CHAPTER XII
The Sparrow-Hawk
There is so little difference between the training of the goshawk and that of the sparrow-hawk, that it is unnecessary to give any special directions for the latter. But, just as the merlin is a more delicate feeder and a more delicate subject than the peregrine, so it must be remembered that the diet and treatment of the smaller short-winged hawk must be morerecherchéthan that of the larger. This is more especially true of the musket, or male sparrow-hawk, which is very much smaller than his sister, and is in many respects a kind of miniature hawk. Nothing in the shape of hard or tough meat must ever be given to him. No long fasts, no hardships. He must be always something of a spoilt child. And after he has once been manned, the more he is petted and pampered the better in most cases he will become. As far as my experience goes, he has a better temper, and is more easily reclaimed than his bigger sisters; but I have heard other falconers express a contrary opinion. Both the ladies and gentlemen, however, excluding exceptional cases, are, for a time at least, about as troublesome creatures as ever wore a good pair of wings. For the first few days after they are captured, or taken up from hack, it seems quite impossible to make anything of them. The beginner, unless he is of a most sanguine temperament, may be excused for despairing of the prospect of ever reducing them to obedience, and far more of ever using them profitably in the field. And, to tell the truth, if he has had no previous experience with a more docile kind of hawk, he seldom does succeed.
Yet an old hand will tell you that, when taken properly in hand, the sparrow-hawk becomes as trusty and hard-working a servant as man can well wish to have. She will combine the tameness of a parrot with the courage, and even ferocity, of atiger, and will learn to treat her master to the amiable side of her character, and the quarry to the other. She will go on flying almost as long as you like to fly her, and start at one sort of bird almost as readily as another. She will work in any kind of country to which you introduce her; and if she does not make a good bag it will not be for want of will on her part, or for not doing her best. It seems almost that in proportion as the difficulties of training are great, so is the result the more gratifying when they have once been overcome. Mr. Riley, who has flown both goshawks and sparrow-hawks with the greatest ardour and success, is of opinion that from the point of view of mere sport, the latter are even superior to the former.
In the good old days partridges seem to have been taken pretty commonly with the female sparrow-hawk. But when I say taken, I do not mean that many old birds were actually caught in the air by the hawks. This would imply that the old-fashioned sparrow-hawk was faster and stronger, as well as better trained, than those of our own time. What often occurred was no doubt that the partridge was pursued by the hawk, and taken by the men or dogs. For the sight of this hawk, when she really means business, is quite enough to take all the courage out of even a bold partridge, and induce him to lie close in the hedge or thicket into which he has been put, when he can be grabbed by a spaniel or retriever, or even sometimes picked up by hand. I make no question that the old-fashioned falconers, by the aid of their drugs and nostrums, kept their hawks of all kinds—and especially hobbies—in better condition than we do. But even then it would probably have been considered quite a feat to take old partridges on the wing with a sparrow-hawk. And now, when the stubbles can only be called covert by courtesy, and to get within fifteen yards of a bird is a rare thing, it is certainly more difficult for us than it was for them to get a fair start at one. But a time often comes in a day’s shooting when the birds, having been shot at a good deal, and scattered like sheep without a shepherd, lie very close in a patch of clover or thin roots. This would be the time for one of the guns, who had brought out his falconer with a sparrow-hawk in reserve, to call the latter forward. The rest of the guns—or some of them at least—would probably be glad enough to see so unusual a sight as a flight with a sparrow-hawk at a partridge. Anyhow, the interruption to the business of the day, while the little hawk was flown, would be very slight. Of course a sparrow-hawk which is intended to fly partridgesshould be kept, as Turbervile recommends, as much as possible to “big fowls.” And there would always be more or less a risk, unless the hawk was in first-rate condition,—in what is called “screaming yarak,”—that she would refuse at the critical moment the carefully marked bird, and put her owner to an everlasting shame. A falconer who is afraid of this, however, is not the sort of man who will ever do much good with any kind of hawk nowadays.
The quarrypar excellenceof the sparrow-hawk is a blackbird. Every female which is sound in wind and limb, and also most males, ought to be able to take blackbirds, whereas it must be an exceptionally strong and bold female which will be good enough for the much more difficult flight at partridges. The hawk referred to in theMerry Wives of Windsorseems to have been an eyess musket. Unless, therefore, the falconer is particularly ambitious and confident in himself and his hawks, he had better lay himself out for blackbirds as thepièce de résistance, with the chance of a few thrushes, starlings, water-hens, and small birds to make up the bag. Peter Gibbs the falconer told me that he had taken thirteen head of quarry, varying in size from a partridge to a wren, in one day with a female sparrow-hawk.
One advantage of the flight at blackbirds is that the quarry is easy to find. Few enclosed countries in England are without a good supply of them; and it is seldom that their haunts are so secure that they cannot be dislodged so as to afford a flight. Only a man must not go out blackbird-hawking all alone. He should rather get as many people to join in the business as he can. There is nothing unsociable or exclusive about a blackbird-hawking expedition. The gardener, and the gardener’s men, as well as the keepers, the boys home for the holidays, and in short everyone who is available, should all be encouraged to volunteer as beaters, and help in the campaign against the plunderers of the raspberry bushes. Formerly this sort of hedge-hunting was a very popular amusement. Although in the fantastic apportionment of hawks to different ranks and degrees, the sparrow-hawk and musket were appropriated to ecclesiastics, it was a common thing for yeomen and small landowners to keep and fly this familiar and serviceable little creature. When Mr. Page says that he has a “fine hawk for the bush” (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. scene 3), he means that he has a sparrow-hawk which will afford sport for a whole company of country-folk; and when he and his friends go out the next morning after breakfast“birding,” they may safely be supposed to get a morning’s sport very much of the sort that is now to be described.
Ruby looks very murderous as she sits with her thin yellow fingers gripping the arch of yew which forms her bow-perch on the lawn. The warm autumnal sun lights up her feathers in their true colours of slatey brown on the back, and barred white on the breast. Very keen and pitiless is her yellow eye as it turns quickly towards each spot where the slightest unusual movement attracts her notice. Presently, however, all her attention is concentrated on one object, as her master steps across the lawn. In a moment she is on to the outstretched fist, where a well-known reward is almost always found. The leash is untied; we are beckoned to come on, and we start at once, accompanied by the terrier Sandy, with a knowing look on his shrewd face. It is a warm still day, and we go straight to the big meadow, where in the bottom hedge we put out a thrush. Ruby is off the fist like lightning, and gains fast on the quarry. Just as he turns to get into the hedge the hawk makes a dash, which very nearly succeeds, but the thrush has just managed to swerve out of the way, and, running along and through the hedge, escapes on the other side, while Ruby betakes herself to a tree hard by. Before she is called down a blackbird is sighted near the same tree, and we form a line so as to drive him towards the hawk. This, however, does not accord with the views of our black friend in the bush, who resists our well-meant endeavours, and tries to work his way past us away from the tree. Fortunately there are enough of us to frustrate his efforts, and prevent him from shirking along the hedge. He is obliged to take a line across the field, and as soon as he is well away from the fence Ruby is up to him. In shifting from the stoop he dashes himself against the ground, and even by this violent effort does not wholly escape, as the hawk hits him hard as she passes overhead. He picks himself up at once and makes for the hedge, but is just too late, as Ruby grabs him just as he is entering.
Passing on to another long hedge we soon get a flight at another blackbird, which puts in before the hawk gets up. Ruby will not wait, but goes on to an oak at the end of the hedge. We beat on, with a view to drive him towards the hawk, and find that there is more than one blackbird in front of us. One of these is driven out, and Ruby makes a fine stoop at him out of the tree, but fails to hit him, and he puts in. After several tries he is persuaded to fly out into the open, and makefor some bushes that are not far off, but as he goes the hawk knocks him over with a severe cut, and though he gets up again and staggers on, she has him well before he can reach the bush. With the next blackbird we have no end of excitement under and round a tree in the fence, the fugitive several times baffling us as we are driving him along towards a bare place in the hedge, and compelling us to hark back and begin driving him up again. Once he comes out a yard, and whips back again instantly. The hawk goes again up into an oak-tree near the gate. Now we drive on furiously, hoping that at the gate, anyhow, he will take wing. Some time before we get there he loses patience and ventures a flight across the field. Ruby gets a poor start, but the blackbird makes a bad use of his chance, allowing the hawk to recover lost ground rapidly, and makes such a weak attempt to get inside a brake that he is taken on the top—perhaps dazed with all the noise and hustling in the fence.
The next is a very plucky young cock, found in a short piece of hedge by a wire fence. In and out of the wire fence he shifts very cleverly, and only just saves himself in a holly bush. Here he establishes himself in a nearly impregnable fortress, made up of an earth-bank, with some tangled roots, and an infinity of quickset, wild rose, and bramble. The yapping of Sandy, the shouts of the beaters, and the howls of an under-gardener, who in the ardour of pursuit has torn his cheek open with a briar—all are unavailing to storm the citadel until someone with a well-directed thrust nearly pins him by the tail. Then at last he is off in real earnest towards a thick brake. Before he can get there Ruby compels him with a knock on the back to drop down on the ground, and though he gets up and shuffles into the brake, he is evidently the worse for wear. It takes ten minutes’ hard work to dislodge him again, and even when dislodged he dodges back after going a few yards. At last, as it is getting dark, he happens to go out just under the spot where the hawk is sitting, and she collars him above the ditch, dropping into it with him. A flight of half an hour, “including stoppages,” and hard work all the time—for the men!
Another day we are out with Lady Macbeth, a young eyess with broad shoulders, large feet, and a very small head. The luck is against us at first. We are foiled by a blackbird and outflown by a thrush, and have failed to find any water-hens. At length a blackbird is marked down in a field of swedes inthe open, and we adjourn there, full of hopes. The tactics adopted by this blackrobed gentleman are simple, but ingenious and effective. They consist of flopping down, as the hawk gets quite near, into a thick bunch of turnip leaves, and, when once on the ground, doubling round the stalks so as to elude the hawk, which, of course, dives into the damp covert at the same place where the quarry disappeared. Then when the hawk’s head is safe behind the leafy screen of verdure, the chance comes of jumping up and slipping off unseen. Twice does Lady Macbeth detect him in the act of thus slinking off; but she is thrown out again by the same stratagem, and on the third occasion the fugitive gets off unseen by his persecutor, though in full sight of us, and also of Sandy, who yelps demoniacally, either from pure vexation, or perhaps in the hope of attracting the attention of his friend and ally. Well, of course, we lose that fellow, who goes off joyously over the hedge and the next field, glorying, like Ulysses, in the success of his wiles. More valuable to magpie and blackbird than the rather limited allowance of wing-power with which Nature has provided them, is the considerable supply of brains by which the balance is made up.
At last, however, we get a bit of luck, which indeed makes it rather a red-letter day for Lady Macbeth, for as we beat along one of the least likely-looking hedge-rows, more for the sake of doing the proper thing than with a hope of finding anything, there is a huge flurry and bustle almost under the feet of our falconer, and up gets a single partridge, beating the air noisily with broad, round wings as he gets clear of the overgrown ditch. When he is once fairly on the wing he will soon put on a pace nearly, if not quite, equal to any that our hawk can attain to. That is, he “would” rather than he “will,” for we have not been idle all this time. On the contrary, Lady Macbeth, somewhat startled at first, spreads her wings, and at once shoots upwards, as if with a view to see what is the matter. Then, pulling herself together as she takes in the situation, she makes a sort of half-turn in the air, comes down in a slanting course, half stooping and half flying, and before the partridge has gone forty yards, strikes him full on the back with both feet. One, at least, of the eight sharp claws hold, and down they come with a whack on the brown earth of the ploughed field, where they seem almost to roll over one another in the excitement of the fray which has still to be fought out. For a real set-to it is, of the rough-and-tumble order. The hawk’sclaws, long and sharp as they are, do not penetrate to any vital part of the partridge as they do when a sparrow is the victim. Nor do her long spindle-like legs look as if they could do much service in a wrestling bout, when opposed to the short, stout, and very muscular understandings of the other. But Lady Macbeth makes play with her wings and tail as well as her feet and legs, otherwise she could be upset and shaken off in no time. Half a dozen long feathers pressed down into the ground on each side prevent her from being thrown to right or left; a dozen almost equally long and elastic feathers behind steady her still further, and act as a sort of drag if the struggling partridge tries to rush forward and so free itself. So, though the encounter is fierce, as the two feathered bodies sway about spasmodically over the rough surface of the furrow, the assailant keeps the upper hand; and soon the allied forces come up in support. The trainer, joyous at the tardy success which has crowned his afternoon, gets hold of one of the partridge’s wings and holds it down, so that the kicks and scratchings to which he now resorts are wasted on the insensible clods beneath. The hawk now shifts one foot from the shoulder to the head; two claws imbed themselves in the face and neck. A third, sad to say, pierces the falconer’s unguarded thumb; but though he moans with the pain, he does not withdraw his hand till he has cleared it from the hooked claw. Then, with sharp knife, he severs the partridge’s jugular vein, and, opening the skull, allows the hawk to pick out the brain. Lady Macbeth will now be fed up; she has had some work and some encouragement, and we shall next time try to find her another short start at a partridge.
One of the merits of “birding” with a sparrow-hawk is that everyone out is always busily engaged. Everyone thinks that he has marked the exact spot where the fugitive put in, and can lay his hand at once on the place where his cunning head is hiding under the ferns or leaves. And yet when the hedge is reached these boastings are all falsified, and the hiding-places seem all to be bare. “He never stopped in the hedge at all,” says one. “Yes he did. He doubled down to the right.” "He climbed up into the middle." “Hark, there! I heard him flutter.” "You make such a confounded row with your argumentation; no one can hear anything." “There he goes!” "No; that’s Sandy." “I see him now.” "To the left!" “Keep him back.” "Cut him off." And so the chase goes on. Lady Macbeth, or Ruby, sits quietest of all on the commandingbough, though her yellow eyes glitter with excitement, and her legs and wings are ready for a start the moment that a black feather shows itself. It is equally hard to grab an old cock blackbird in the hedge, or to drive him out of it far enough to give the hawk a chance of a fair shot. As for the thrushes, they seem to puzzle a sparrow-hawk more even than the wiliest of their black cousins. They have more wing-power, too, and are apt to distance her in fair flight. A starling is, I believe, not an easy bird to take if he has anything of a start. Wood-pigeons, when taken by wild sparrow-hawks, must probably be caught unawares.
A small wiry-haired dog which is not afraid of thorns will often be useful. Sandy is not without his honours in the hawking-field. Many a blackbird has he snapped up in his mouth within a yard of his formidable ally, in whose presence the quarry thinks that almost anything is preferable to a flight across the open. Then the victim is, of course, taken from him—often unhurt—for Sandy is too well bred and too well trained to injure it if he can help doing so; and with the orthodox cry of “Ware, hawk! ware!” is thrown out to the hawk. Water-hens are a rather favourite quarry for the female sparrow-hawk, as well as for the goshawk, when she is not a very distinguished performer. A water-spaniel which knows how to work with a hawk is in each case very useful. Landrails would afford a capital flight if they were plentiful enough, and could be induced to give themselves a fair start, instead of waiting to be kicked up when the hawk is close upon them.
But perhaps the best flight of all, next to partridges, is at the quail, and it is one in which the musket can be employed as well as his sister. The Italian authorities, upon whom Turbervile draws for the chief part of his treatise on falconry, speak of the quail as the special quarry of the sparrow-hawk, and give minute directions for this flight, which could, of course, be had in perfection in the Egyptian paddy-fields, and in other parts of the East. It is said that some of the tribes tributary to the Grand Turk, who had to pay their tribute in quails, used to provide themselves by means of sparrow-hawks alone with the necessary number of birds. The African falconers, when in pursuit of quails, take the sparrow-hawk round the body in their right hand, and as the quarry rises throw her at them like a round-hand bowler, thereby giving her an initial impetus, of which she seems fully to understand the advantage. In some places they surround the neck of the hawk with ahalschband, or linen collar,which serves to steady the flight. The Besra sparrow-hawk, as has already been said, is used as well as the common species.
A quotation from the last-named author will here, perhaps, be found to the point. “Set your sparrow-hawke,” he says, “every morning abroade in the sunne two houres, or neare thereabouts, and set her to the water twice in a weeke at the least, and especially nyasses, for they covet the water more than the rest. Soar sparrow-hawks should not be flown withal too soone in a morning, for they soare willingly. Take your sparrow-hawke from the pearche alwayes with somewhat in your hand, to make her love you, and be fond of you, for that is a thing of no small importance and consideration. And also to make your sparrow-hawke foot great fowles, to the end that she may not learn nor be accustomed to carrion. And as touching mewing of a sparrow-hawke, some use to put her in the mew as soon as they leave fleeing with her, cutting off both her bewits, lines, and the knots of her jesses, and leave her in the mew until she be cleane mewed. But if you will have her to flee at partridge, quail, or the feazent poult, then you must draw her in the beginning of April, and have her on the fist till she be cleane and thoroughly enseamed. And they which delight in haggarts must take great heede that they offend them not, but rather coy them as much as they can, with all devices of favour and cherishing. For they will remember favor or injurie much better than any kind of hawke. And he which hath a haggart sparrow-hawke must above all thinges take paines in weyning her from that vile fault of carrying: and that shall he do by serving her often with greate pullets and other great traines, the which she cannot carry, and thereby she will learne to abide upon the quarry.”
Sparrow-Hawk and Partridge.
Sparrow-Hawk and Partridge.
Mr. Riley has given me some extracts from his hawking diary, in which the following scores are recorded:—
Blanche (eyess female), 1885-86—44 blackbirds, 13 thrushes, 1 partridge, 2 small birds.Lady Mabel (eyess female), 1887-88—56 blackbirds, 5 thrushes, 4 water-hens, 3 partridges, 1 pheasant, 2 small birds.Faerie (eyess female), 1889-90—64 blackbirds, 3 thrushes, 4 water-hens, 1 partridge, 4 small birds.Ruby (eyess female), 1894-95—106 blackbirds, 1 partridge, 1 starling, 1 small bird.Princess (wild-caught female), 1895-96 (Nov. 11 to March 24)—39 blackbirds, 1 thrush.
Blanche (eyess female), 1885-86—44 blackbirds, 13 thrushes, 1 partridge, 2 small birds.
Lady Mabel (eyess female), 1887-88—56 blackbirds, 5 thrushes, 4 water-hens, 3 partridges, 1 pheasant, 2 small birds.
Faerie (eyess female), 1889-90—64 blackbirds, 3 thrushes, 4 water-hens, 1 partridge, 4 small birds.
Ruby (eyess female), 1894-95—106 blackbirds, 1 partridge, 1 starling, 1 small bird.
Princess (wild-caught female), 1895-96 (Nov. 11 to March 24)—39 blackbirds, 1 thrush.
Of these the wild-caught Princess, though injured in the leg by a trap, was very superior in her style. Ruby at the end of the season flew very like a wild hawk. This Ruby was wonderfully fast and clever, and an excellent footer. The number of blackbirds she killed stone dead by stoops out of trees was astonishing. In size she did not exceed the average. Speaking from an experience of a great many years, and with an authority which everyone must acknowledge, Mr. Riley declares that “no sport with a female goshawk can touch that to be got with a good female sparrow-hawk.”
CHAPTER XIII
Home Life
Probably the commonest fault in young falconers of the modern school is that of keeping too many hawks. Almost every writer on the subject has warned them over and over again against this rage for being “over-hawked”; and yet it is still the cause of endless failures, disappointments, and disasters. “Don’t you know, if I lose one I like to have another to fall back upon.” Such is the excuse, and a very bad one it is. If a beginner can manage to keep one hawk of any kind in flying order he may consider himself exceptionally clever; and the sole charge of a cast of hawks is quite as much as any amateur ought to undertake, unless he is blessed with a great deal more leisure time than is usually the case. An experienced professional falconer, with a boy to help him, and with nothing else to occupy his time, may manage an establishment of three short-winged hawks, or about five long-winged, or one of the former and three of the latter, short-winged hawks, when in flying condition, requiring about twice as much attention as their nobler cousins. But if it is desired to keep up a larger establishment, there should be, counting in the head falconer, one man, or at least one boy, to every two hawks.
A falconer who attends properly to his charges will find that they monopolise a very large portion of every day—at anyrate from the time when the eyesses arrive, in early summer, to the end of the rook-hawking season in spring. His duties may be divided into those which we may call normal or permanent, and which relate to the hawks which are already in flying order, and only require to be flown and kept in working condition, and exceptional or special duties, such as the hacking of eyesses, and the manning and reclaiming of hawks which are newly caught, newly taken up, or newly removed from the moulting-place. Thus, as in other professions, there aretimes of extra pressure, when every hour in a long day has its full complement of busy work, and times of comparative rest, when the labour is a good deal lighter. But at all times the falconer, if he is to excel, must be possessed of certain qualifications, either innate in him or carefully acquired, which will enable him to become a favourite amongst his winged pupils and servants.
Among such qualities the foremost is prudence. A moment of carelessness, or even inattention, may almost every day entail the loss of a valuable hawk. A knot insecurely fastened, a door inadvertently left open, a leash or jess that has become unsound,—all these are examples of small imprudences, some one of which many a falconer will bitterly remember to have been the cause of a catastrophe. Cleanliness and tidiness are virtues none the less desirable in a professional falconer because they were, and still are, a little rare. It is not so easy a matter as it may at first be supposed to keep a hawk-house clean and neat; and the very first aspect of many such places speaks volumes for the character of the owner or his servants. The person who has to manage hawks should be gentle in all his dealings with them. He should have the touch of an organist rather than of a pianist; the hands of a sculptor rather than of a wrestler or quoit-player. Any hurried or sudden movement is offensive and alarming to hawks; and rough treatment of any kind disgusts and makes enemies of them. Patience and a good temper are quite as necessary to a falconer as to an angler—probably more so, as the difficulties and injustices with which the falconer is confronted under modern conditions exceed those which are met with in any other kind of sport. He must be a good judge of the characters of animals, and of their moods and fancies, for there is as much difference in the dispositions of hawks as of human beings, and no two of them, except by a rare accident, can be treated successfully in exactly the same way. His sight and hearing must be good, for much depends upon his ability to keep a long flight in view, and to distinguish the sound of a hawk’s bell in a high wind, amidst the rustle of leaves and grass, the murmur of a stream, or the pattering of rain.
In the golden age of falconry great weight was attached to the possession of good lungs. The “falconer’s voice,” for which Juliet fondly wished, was used not only to lure the tassel-gentle back again, but to encourage him in his efforts, and to cheer his successful or brilliant strokes. A modern trainer is not sodemonstrative. We have—wrongly, I think—almost abandoned the use of calls and cheers to animate our winged friends in the air. But even now a loud voice is a merit in a falconer, if only as enabling him from afar to warn the field and any chance intruders not to meddle with a flight or run in to a hawk that has killed. Those few who still make a practice of “giving their voice” to their hawks are, I think, well repaid for their trouble. For no one can doubt how attentive hawks are to sounds, especially of the human voice, or how thoroughly they become convinced, when well handled, that they and their followers on foot or horseback, and the dogs, when there are any, are all friends and comrades engaged, each in his different way, in the same campaign against the same quarry.
As the huntsman in his kennels, and the trainer in his stables, so the good falconer should take a pride in his mews, or in the place, whatever he calls it, where his hawks are lodged. We have abandoned for the most part the old name of mews—long ago degraded to a new signification—and with it the fashion of building proper quarters for the accommodation of our feathered friends. The modern hawk-house is often a poor substitute for the substantial buildings which our ancestors called mews. Nowadays almost any outhouse seems to be thought good enough for the purpose; and the trained hawks of several amateurs who are justly reputed good falconers are housed in what are little more than shanties, barely able to keep out the rain and wind, and not at all proof against that insidious enemy, the damp. There can be no doubt that the excessive prevalence in our times of the horrible disorder called “croaks” is largely due to the want of care with which our hawks are housed in winter.
A hawk-house should have solid walls, and a floor well raised above the ground, so as to be impervious to damp. It should have a loft or room above it, which will help to save it from extreme variations of temperature by day and by night. In such a place all hawks, except merlins and those which have come from any hot climate, may be kept through all ordinary weathers, care being taken, of course, that the ventilation is sufficient, but in winter not excessive. In times of severe frost or excessive damp a very moderate amount of artificial heat should be introduced. A very good arrangement, when it can be adopted, is for the back wall of the hawk-house to be also the back wall on the other side of a warm conservatory or well-heated room. In such cases it is unnecessary, unless inexceptional winters, to have any heating apparatus in the hawk-house itself. Merlins and the tropical hawks, such as shaheens, barbarys, and also the desert falcons, should, in cold or damp weather at least, be placed in a room which is over a very well-warmed apartment, and has the flue of one chimney at least running along one of its sides. A room immediately above a kitchen is pretty safe in all weathers for all hawks if the fire is kept up all night, but not otherwise. Where the room is unavoidably isolated, there must be a stove or some heating apparatus; but the heat thrown out must be very moderate indeed, or the hawks when taken out for weathering, or even when left stoveless by day, are nearly sure to catch cold. Changes of temperature in our islands are sudden and severe enough when due to natural causes only, but if they are produced by artificial means no hawk can be expected to endure them with impunity, and least of all gers, merlins, and the denizens of the sunny south. The hardiest hawks are peregrines and hobbies, but these, too, must be given a fair chance, even if it entail upon their owner some inconvenience and expense. Whenever the weather is very wet or damp, with penetrating fogs, opportunity should be taken, when the hawks are all out on their blocks or being carried, to warm the hawk-house thoroughly by artificial means, and purge it of all suspicion of damp.
Adjoining the hawks’ apartment should be another small room, where lures and spare “furniture” can be kept. Meat and food of all kinds should be rigorously excluded from the first-mentioned room, but may be kept, if it is quite fresh, on an emergency in the other, where blocks and bow-perches when taken in out of the rain can be deposited. On the walls in either room may be hung on small pegs or nails the hoods for each kind of hawk; but it is well to mark clearly above each peg a description of the sort of hood which is intended to be there hung, so that in a case of hurry one may not be mistaken for another, and a tiercel’s hood crammed on to a falcon, or a female hobby’s be found wobbling about on the head of a jack-merlin. Every falconer should have in his cupboard a tin box containing a supply of imping needles suitable for the hawks which he keeps, and some spare feathers ready for imping. The same box will hold other small paraphernalia and odds-and-ends, such as waxed thread, pincers for “coping” or blunting the beak and talons, tweezers for putting on jesses, punches for making holes in leashes, scissors, files, and a scrapof thin leather for making jesses and bewits. Or there may be a compartment where ready-made jesses, bells, swivels, and spare leashes are stored. The lures, well cleansed from all food that has been attached to them, and the hawking gloves, can have their proper place in the side-room.
If the building inhabited by the hawks is large, the upper part may be used as a loft wherein to moult them. If there are hawks of different kinds to be moulted, it must be divided into separate compartments, so that no two of very different size may be together. And each individual goshawk must have a room for itself. It would not be safe to turn falcons and tiercels loose together, nor a female with a male sparrow-hawk. Merlins and jacks may be left together, and in the same place with male hobbies; and probably peregrine tiercels with female shaheens, lanners with lannerets, and perhaps barbarys. But it is not very wise to risk the chumming together of any dissimilar hawks at a time when they are all kept in specially high condition, with no work to do, and ready for the mischief which Dr. Watts assures us is a natural concomitant of idleness. Of course if there is a living-room above the hawks, or above the furniture-room, it may serve most conveniently for a falconer’s or under-falconer’s bedroom, enabling him to be at hand by night as well as day in case there should be anything wrong, such as a hawk hanging by her jesses from the perch, or a scuffle amongst hawks moulting in the same compartment.
At six o’clock in summer, and as soon as it is light in winter, the falconer should be in the hawks’ room. If newly-caught hawks are there, they will be in a compartment from which all daylight has been excluded. Taking them one by one on the fist, he will put on their hoods, and then, lighting a candle, or admitting enough light, he will search for their castings under the screen-perch. If any one of them which has had castings the day before should not have yet cast, he must either put her back on the perch in the dark, or else, if she is far enough advanced in training for this, hand her over to an under-falconer to be carried till she has performed that operation. Under the place occupied by each hawk the pellet should be looked for and examined before it is thrown away with the sweepings of soiled sawdust collected under the perches. As the falconer ascertains that each hawk has cast up a healthy pellet, well-shaped and free from oily mucus, he will be doing no harm if he presents her with a mouthful or two of food, by way of a morning salutation, and just to show that there is no ill-will.
Then if it is a fine morning, there will probably be a hawk or two which may with advantage be pegged out, either in the sunshine, if she is fond of it, or under the cool shade of a tree. At anyrate, there will be a hawk which will be none the worse for half an hour’s carrying; and if there are merlins, it will be none too early to fly them to the lure. Every falconer, each time he rises, ought to take note of the weather, marking especially the direction and strength of the wind, and should do his best to forecast how the day will turn out. If he sees reason to expect a stormy afternoon, he will prepare to fly the hawks as early as he can; whereas, if it is already blowing or raining hard, he may think it best to provide for the possibility of a late start, taking the chance of an improvement in the weather at midday, or later. He should decide betimes which hawks are certain not to be taken out to the field, and make sure that their allowance of food is ready to be given them early in the day. Such hawks may generally be put out early in the morning, and provided with tirings, at which they may pull away contentedly on their blocks till it is time either to fly them to the lure, or to give them their ration on the fist. In the game-hawking season there will be a consultation with the keeper as to the country to be visited and the dogs to be taken out; and the falconer, having an eye to the direction of the wind, will plan out provisionally the sort of tactics which it will be best to adopt in beating the ground. Beaters and markers should also be secured, and directed as to the order of the day’s proceedings, whether the business in hand is grouse-hawking, lark-hawking, or any other form of sport for which these attendants are required.
After breakfast, on sunshiny days, there will generally be candidates for the bath. Fresh water must be brought; and in very cold weather a cup or two of hot water may be added, to take off the chill. Each hawk, after bathing, should have an hour at least to dry and air herself in the sun and wind. In emergencies, on cloudy days, the old falconers used to dry their hawks after bathing by holding them with their backs to a fire. Hawks do not usually care to take a bath much before eleven o’clock; and they should not be indulged with one after half-past twelve. Those which have bathed will, of course, not be ready to fly till well on in the afternoon, especially as they will have had a very light feed in the early morning, as it is not good to let a hawk bathe on a quite empty stomach. The falconer will generally like to be present while the hawks bathe,so that he will not be ready to start for the field, even with those that have not bathed, much before noon. This hour, moreover, is full early for peregrines and most of the larger hawks, which are apt to be slack in the pursuit of their quarry when they have, or at least think they have, the best part of the day before them in which to provide themselves with their one daily solid meal.
Hawks which are not yet thoroughly accustomed to the hood should be hooded up with care, so as to avoid any trial of their temper just as they are about to be called upon to do their best. Hawks, of course, ought always to be good at the hood; but some manifest an obstinate repugnance to it, as for instance Vesta, the very excellent game-falcon trained for the Old Hawking Club. The duties of the falconer in the field are referred to at length in the next chapter. As soon as he has returned—which will usually not be much, if at all, before dark—he must be satisfied that each hawk has had the full allowance of food which he had decided to be good for her, that her beak and talons are fairly clean, her feathers in good order, and her swivel and leash properly attached. Then each will be put in her accustomed place on the screen-perch, the leash being securely tied round the perch itself, as described inChapterIII., and the hood, if she is hooded, removed and hung up.
As for the hawks, if any, which, not being destined for the field, have been left at home, either at blocks on the lawn, or indoors, some person will have been left to shift their blocks as they become exposed to the sun, to carry them for a specified time, and perhaps to fly some of them to the lure. Every trained hawk, unless she is put down to moult, or is being flown at quarry, should be exercised daily to the lure or the fist—merlins twice, and all others once. The methods of giving exercise have been already described; but it must be remembered that when once a hawk has been entered the more real flying in the field she gets the better. Otherwise you are between the horns of a dilemma. If you give no exercise the hawk grows heavy, stale, and lazy. If you fly her too much to the lure she may grow too fond of it, and less keen at wild quarry. Good practical falconers are thus rather averse to a too free use of the lure with peregrines and lanners. On the other hand, I have found that merlins cannot well have too much stooping at the lure. Rook-hawks, and others which are never expected to wait on at a height, may often be made to doa large amount of pretty fast flying when stooping at the dead lure. This sort of practice is of course not to be encouraged in the case of game-hawks or duck-hawks, as tending to lower their pitch, which it is the chief desire of the falconer to keep as high as possible. But long-winged hawks, even in the mere act of waiting on, especially in a strong wind, get a good breather and a good stretching of their wings, if they are always allowed to be uncertain in their own minds whether in the end it will be a partridge or a pigeon that they will have to come down for, or merely the dead lure.
As for the short-winged hawks, and for such others as will not keep on the wing willingly without going to perch, they must be exercised chiefly by the device known as calling off. The most effective plan is that mentioned inChapterVI., where two men go out, and, standing at a distance from one another, alternately bring the hawk across the intervening space by showing the lure or the outstretched fist. If two men are not available the hawk may be deposited on a railing, gate, or post, and the falconer may walk away, hiding his hands, and when he is as far off as he likes, or as the hawk will allow him to go, may call her and reward her with a few morsels, and then put her down again for the operation to be repeated. A trained hawk will often follow the falconer about for a long time, as he walks along, waiting a while in expectation of being called, and, if disappointed, flitting to a nearer resting-place, or coming right up to him on the chance that his hand will be held out; and if it is not, betaking herself to a neighbouring tree or other convenient place. Such excursions as these, in a park or on the downs, with a favourite hawk always in sight, either in the air or on a conspicuous perch of her own choosing, afford an opportunity of indulging her with the best possible sort of weathering. It is the nearest approach which can safely be made to giving trained hawks their liberty.
It is a common thing with writers on hawking to recommend their readers, when a trained hawk is out of sorts, to put her on a pair of hack-bells, and turn her out to hack for a while. I desire to speak with all respect of a practice which has doubtless been often attempted with success; but I am compelled to say that my own experience is altogether unfavourable to any such experiment. Attempts that I have known made to keep trained hawks at hack have not only failed, but have over and over again entailed the loss of the bird operated upon, sometimes for a time, and sometimes permanently. A strong andclever hawk, even if she is a bit unwell, and even if she is weighted heavily, will manage to kill something, if she has a real mind to it; and even if she does not, her wanderings may lead her first out of sight, and then into some neighbouring field or place, where a stray gunner may make an end of her. I am not able to advise beginners to turn their hawks loose for any longer time than they themselves or some agent can be near at hand, unless it be in the case of a kestrel or hobby, or other hawk which has never killed wild birds regularly in fair flight.
No ordinary bad weather should deter a falconer from taking his long-winged hawks out to exercise. Rain, unless it is very heavy, will do a hawk no harm during the short time she is flying to the lure or being called off. Even if the rain is heavy, an umbrella can be held over the hawk as she is carried to the exercise-ground and back. Wind must be very high indeed before the trainer should hesitate to fly his hawks at exercise. When they are to be merely called off, they will, when sharp-set, if in good condition, face half a gale of wind. But the two men should, in this case, post themselves rather across wind, and not one exactly down-wind of the other; otherwise the hawk of the up-wind man will have her head always turned directly away from the other, and moreover, if she comes fast towards the latter, may be carried so far past him that she will not take the trouble to fetch up again, and struggle up-wind to a lure of which she has once been disappointed. A game-hawk, especially if it is a passager, should not be kept waiting on very long on a boisterous day. Should she, while in the air, catch sight of a wood-pigeon or house-pigeon down-wind, and give chase, she may be out of sight in a moment, and, if the quarry takes the air, may go miles before you can run or ride five hundred yards. The best hawks rather enjoy flying in a very high wind, and seem to take an obvious pride in exerting their mastery over it. Their stoops at the lure in such weather are often exceptionally fine; and the tremendous pace at which the wind enables them to come down, evidently affords them much inward satisfaction.
In hot and sunny weather some caution is advisable in flying hawks to the lure, as well as in the field. For when in high condition, even if they are hungry, they are sometimes disposed to go soaring, and, as it were, forgetting all about mundane affairs, disappear in airy circles down-wind. Eyesses will, it is true, generally come back when they are tired of soaring. They are reminded, sooner or later, by an internal feeling thatthere is such a thing as a garnished lure in the foreground. But suppose a passage peregrine, after stretching her wings for five minutes at a height of a thousand feet, to catch sight of a wood-pigeon crossing the open down. It would be almost too much to expect that she should resist the temptation. In the cool of the day, morning and evening, hawks very seldom soar if they are sharp-set, and have had the chance of a bath most fine days. It is from nine to four o’clock in summer that there is the most risk of it; and hobbies, which are greatly addicted to the habit, should not be flown during these hours in fine weather, unless the owner is prepared to wait twenty minutes, or even longer, for my lord or my lady to finish airing herself in the sky. Very special care must be taken of all hawks during the migration season—that is, for some weeks after the latter part of September and the beginning of April. At the former period, indeed, it is barely safe to let hobbies wait on at all; and the steadiest peregrines and merlins are apt to feel more or less strongly the restlessness born of migratory instincts. Many favourite hawks which seemed a few days ago to be as safe as tame cats, have been known at migrating time to develop quite suddenly an ungovernable wish to travel, and have cleared for foreign parts when they had an opportunity, without a moment’s warning or a word of leave-taking.
Each hawk, after flying to the lure, will be immediately fed up, usually on the way back to the hawk-house or the lawn. As a rule, the earlier a hawk can be fed up the better, for she will be the sooner ready for the field on the next day. Moreover, she will fly better, probably, to the lure if she is aware that that ordeal is often the precursor of a solid meal. The rather common practice of feeding all the hawks at about the same hour—generally late in the day—has nothing that I ever heard of to recommend it. How can a hawk which habitually dines at six o’clock or later be expected to be keen or to fly well when thrown off at her quarry at three or four o’clock? If a peregrine, when it has been finally decided not to fly her in the field that day, is fed at about eleven o’clock, she will be fit to fly on the morrow at any time after noon. The falconer should note in what order his hawks are fed, so that on the next day, unless any special circumstances prevent it, those which have been fasting the longest should be flown the first.
No hawk, after being fed up, should be disturbed, frightened, or shaken about. If the return journey from the field or exercise-ground is long, and the hawk inclined to bate off the fist,she should be hooded just before or after she has finished her meal; and on returning home she should be put in a quiet place—either on a block where nothing can interfere with her, or on the screen-perch; and if given to bating off, she should remain hooded, or else in a darkened room, till nightfall. No hawk should be allowed ever to finish her meal within sight of another that is still hungry, or to be in a place where she can see a lure or any sort of food without being able to get at it. At no time should a hawk be pegged out in a position where she is exposed to a strong wind, or to a hot sun, except just before and for a while after her bath. Never should food be dragged or pulled away forcibly from a hawk, leaving her hungry on the fist or perch with nothing to eat. The falconer must play the part of a friend, and of a generous friend, not of a niggardly and tyrannical master, who makes use of his superior strength to rob his servant of the good things which she expected to enjoy.
In summer, when the weather is fine and the ground tolerably dry, peregrines, hobbies, and some of the hardiest of the big hawks may be left all night at their blocks on the grass. But the advantages, if any, resulting from such a plan are, I think, more than questionable. It is argued, of course, that wild hawks sleep in the open air, and therefore why not trained ones? But the wild hawk chooses his or her resting-place—almost always a tall tree or rock—far out of reach of the dews and mists which belong to the grass and the lower air. If the wild hawk gets wet, or feels cold at midnight, she has only the elements or herself to blame. If the trained hawk suffers, will she not blame the man who tied her down in a position where she could not escape from these discomforts? A perfectly clean and well-aired hawk-house is, to my mind, as good a place for hawks to sleep in as the finest lawn on the fairest night of the year. What good does a hawk get from bating at the block on to the wet grass from 3 or 4 a.m. till the falconer appears? If wild hawks did this, instead of keeping aloft in the clear air, would they not be likely sometimes to get the croaks?
I have reserved till as late a place as this the question of dieting, the most difficult, if not the most important, part of the falconer’s art. Condition in a trained hawk, as in a trained horse or hound, is the most essential requisite for really great success. Without it the very best hawk will make but a poor show; and with it even a naturally slow hawk can be flown with pleasure and credit. Condition must always depend chiefly upon two things, exercise and dieting. Now, as regardsexercise, it is impossible for a falconer to err on the side of excess. Wild hawks in their airy circlings, and in pursuit of their daily subsistence, traverse an almost incredible distance in the course of a year; probably fifty times as many miles as the most active of trained hawks can be expected to travel in the same period. Let the trainer, therefore, make it a simple rule to give his charges as much exercise as he can—not all at racing pace, of course, but in using their wings. He need not be afraid of overdoing the thing, as long as he leaves off when the hawk has made too violent an exertion in an actual flight at quarry. I have seen a hobby, waiting on in a high wind, refuse to come down to the lure, though quite sharp-set, and, for the mere pleasure of flying, remain on the wing for twenty-five minutes. The distance flown through the air in the time—counting only that in which his head was to the wind—amounted to a great many miles; and so far was he from being tired at any time, that he would stoop at and hit the lure, and yet refuse to hold it, and go up again to the soar. Few hawks will do this willingly; they must often be induced by some device of the trainer to keep on the wing; and it is impossible to fly such hawks too much.
With respect to food, the matter is altogether different. It is just as easy to overfeed a hawk as to underfeed her. But what trainer can ever be sure that he has always exactly hit off the golden mean? Gers, peregrines, and all the hawks which resemble the peregrine, desert-hawks, hobbies, eagles, goshawks, and female sparrow-hawks, are fed, as a rule, once a day—peregrines well; eagles, goshawks, and the desert-hawks more sparingly. Merlins of both sexes and male sparrow-hawks twice; but lightly on one at least of the two occasions. Raw beef is generally the staple food of the big hawks; but it should not be tough, and should be often varied by a rather lighter diet of bullock’s heart, rabbit, fowl, or pigeon. Merlins and sparrow-hawks should be fed chiefly on small birds, and in default of these on sheep’s heart, rabbit, young fowls, or exceedingly tender mutton or beef. This sort of diet will also be good for hobbies and kestrels; but it is not necessary to be so nice with them, and they can be regaled with coarser food, as long as it is not tough. But they must also have a freshly-killed small bird occasionally. Goshawks will thrive upon rats, weasels, squirrels, rooks, and, in short, almost any kind of bird or animal, except water-hens, which are indigestible and apt to bring them out of yarak. But a goshawk in good flying ordershould not be kept for long upon coarse food, but indulged now and then at least with viands of the best quality. Mice are capital food, not only for kestrels and hobbies, but for merlins and sparrow-hawks, and may be given whole to any kind of hawk by way of castings. Eagles are not particular as to diet; but they should have plenty of tirings, and their meat will be none the worse for being a bit tough.
Eagles and all short-winged hawks should have a gorge, that is to say, as much as they choose to eat, about three times in a fortnight, and on the following day should be very sparingly fed. Eagles, indeed, and some female goshawks need not be fed at all, if they are to be flown at wild quarry on the second day after their full meal. But none of the smaller hawks will stand anything approaching to starvation; and to leave a male sparrow-hawk or merlin without food for twenty-four hours would probably do him a permanent injury, or at all events ruin his chance of doing himself any justice in the field for a long time to come. In the case of these, and indeed all the long-winged hawks, when in constant exercise at wild quarry, I am not quite sure that any good is done by giving any gorges at all. I never do so with merlins in the lark season; and yet I have killed with one of them over thirty larks in succession without a miss. Granting that in their wild state all hawks occasionally gorge themselves, it must be remembered that trained hawks are not in a wild state. The analogy is not a just or true one, any more than it would be to argue from the habits of Red Indians to those expedient for a white man in training. However, there can be no great harm, even if there is no great advantage, in giving a gorge to a peregrine once a week. It is a practice consecrated by old tradition and precept: and it is not for us degenerate modern amateurs to lightly discard the maxims of the age of chivalry.
In saying that peregrines and other big hawks are fed once a day, it is not meant that they should never taste a morsel of food except their one solid meal. Small tit-bits will be forthcoming at odd times, as for instance in the early morning, when they are moved from the perch to the block, or taken to bathe, or to be carried. They will pick a little from the tirings at which they are almost every day set to work. There is no need to be stingy with these odds-and-ends; indeed, the old falconers would very often give their falcons quite a small meal when they hooded up for the field, or a little before. One ancient writer declares that a falcon will eat the wing of a fowl,and two hours afterwards be quite fit to fly. Another recommends his readers always to feed eyess peregrines twice a day, but of course moderately. The exact amount of food which it is proper to give to each hawk cannot be specified even very approximately. For amongst the same class of hawks, nay, amongst hawks which actually came from the same nest, will be found individuals with quite different sorts of appetites. One of them will grow too thin upon rations that make her sister, or even her brother, too fat. Nevertheless, taking the average of a number of hawks of the same species, it is possible to arrive at a rough estimate of what is usually required. The allowance always prescribed for a peregrine falcon is one-third of a pound of beef. Tiercels, therefore, will require about a quarter of a pound; and other English hawks must be provided for on about the same scale,i.e.the amount of food, if very solid, should weigh nearly one-seventh of the total weight of the bird fed. The desert-hawks, however, are much smaller feeders. A saker, for instance, looks about as large as a gerfalcon. But it was computed that a trained ger would eat three times as much as a saker. The power of fasting of these hawks is naturally very great; and they should have great gorges, with intervals of very spare feeding. On the other hand, the small hawks eat a great deal more in proportion to their size than the large ones. A whole skylark, of average dimensions, given freshly killed, with all the blood warm in it, is not quite enough for a merlin’s daily ration, but would be about right for most jacks. The ladies, when doing hard work, require about four larks in three days. A starling or blackbird is about the right daily meal for a female hobby, but rather too little for a female sparrow-hawk, and decidedly too much for a “musket” or “robin.” A sparrow without its feathers weighs an ounce, as nearly as may be; and two whole sparrows a day is a very ample allowance for a merlin, even when flying both morning and evening. Probably this would be about the fair quantity to keep a female hobby in good condition. A sparrow and a half would be about sufficient for a jack, a robin, or a musket. An ounce of beef is of course a heavier meal than an ounce of sparrow, but it may be doubted whether it will give a small hawk more strength or courage, though it will sustain him longer.
It is needless to say that the apportionment of food to each individual hawk becomes a more difficult matter in proportion as the hawk is smaller. A mistake of an ounce, one way or the other, is no great matter in the case of a ger or a falcon,but give a jack-merlin an ounce too much or an ounce too little, and you may very soon find out your mistake in a most practical way. Sometimes a jack will eat more—and need more—than his own sisters or any merlin in the establishment. Sometimes, but more rarely, a single merlin will want nearly as much as two jacks. Tiercel peregrines, barbarys, and others, sometimes, but rarely, require almost as much as a falcon. A hawk which has throughout her life never known what it is to be thin can generally be kept in high condition on less food than one which has once been below par. Fortunate is the man who has been able to train his hawk without ever putting her on short commons, and has always been able, by skill or luck, or both combined, to fly her just at the time when she was keen enough and yet not over-hungry. Such hawks have the best chance of turning out well; and among them may probably be numbered many of those whose names are glorious in the annals of the sport.
A hawk’s condition may be tested to a certain limited extent by passing a finger down her breast-bone, and by feeling the broad pectoral muscles on each side of the breast between the forefinger and thumb. Some indications may also be got by gently pinching the muscles of the leg, to ascertain whether they are full and hard. But these are very rough tokens to judge from. One hawk will fly her best when almost as fat as a wild one, and when the sternum is hardly more prominent than it is in a partridge; whereas others, when fed up to this condition, will do no serious work, but go off soaring on their own account, or take perch in a tree or rick, and stare unconcernedly at the lure as if they had no conception that it had any attractions for them. The experienced falconer will form a better judgment as to the condition of his hawk from the manner in which she flies. There is a power and ease of motion about a full-fleshed hawk, a force in her stoop, and a sort of pride about her every movement, which one looks for in vain in a hawk in poor condition. Thin hawks fly in a laboured way against a strong wind, instead of facing it easily and appearing to rejoice in their victory over it, utilising its very opposition to lift them up, and sailing on it like a stiff yacht in a gale. Weak flying may result from overfeeding as well as underfeeding. But in the one case the style appears too heavy; and in the other, too light.
It is, however, very easy to mistake the symptoms, and to imagine that a hawk wants reducing when in fact she wants feeding up. The result, of course, of such faulty diagnosis willbe that the treatment applied as a remedy aggravates the mischief already done. It is much easier to reduce a hawk than to get flesh on her again. The beginner should therefore be very sure that his hawk has been overfed before he shortens her daily supply of food. By making a mistake on the other side, and feeding up a hawk which is already a bit above herself, the worst inconvenience that is likely to follow, in the case of an eyess, is a little delay in getting her down to the lure. Passage hawks, especially for a while after they have first been reclaimed, are of course liable to be lost if too highly fed, for when disinclined to come to the lure or fist they are apt to rake away after chance quarry. But they may be full-fleshed and strong, and yet be eager for their food. It is a great mistake, though a very common one, to suppose that a thin hawk is necessarily a hungry one. Whether a hawk is fat or thin is a question of days, whereas it is a question of hours whether she is hungry or not. For instance, a peregrine may have had nearly a full crop every day for a week, and yet if on the eighth day she has only a very light feed in the morning she will be as hungry as a hunter on the ninth day in the afternoon. The tendency nowadays is rather to overfeed hawks, and to forget the old maxim about a fat hawk making “a lean horse and an empty purse.” The amateur has been so loudly warned against keeping a thin hawk that in avoiding this reproach he falls into the other extreme, and attempts to fly his hawk when she is really not sharp-set at all.
Washed meat—so commonly used by the old falconers, that it may almost be said to have been a normal daily diet—is now but rarely given, unless, indeed, where a parsimonious or careless owner has neglected to provide fresh meat, and tainted beef is soaked and squeezed so as to make it available as food. The proper mode of preparing washed meat is to take it when quite fresh and immerse it for a while in cold water, and then dry it in a warm place. Part of its nutritive power—of its goodness, in fact—will then have disappeared, and what remains will digest quickly, leaving the hawk more keen and sooner hungry than if she had swallowed the same quantity of unwashed meat. For the smaller hawks it is less suitable than for the larger; and if it is desired to take them down a peg or two, it will generally be found best either to resort to a diet naturally light, such as rabbit or sheep’s heart, or to reduce a little in quantity the accustomed allowance of their usual food. When a merlin is a bit bumptious, independent, and disobedient, her morning rationmay be curtailed, or in feeding up after the day’s exercise she may be indulged only with a good half-crop, instead of the habitual three-quarters. When a peregrine or hawk of similar habits is inclined to be uppish, and to disdain the dead lure, it is a good plan, besides being a shade stingy at dinner-time, to fly her each day at least an hour later than the day before. When, in this way, her time of flying has got to be so late that it cannot be deferred till later on the following day, give her a gorge, or at least a very full meal, when she has done flying, and on the next day, an hour after she has cast, give her quite a light feed, and do not fly her at all till the day after at noon. Sakers, lanners, and that class of hawks must be rather sternly treated if they get above themselves, for their nature is to support long fasts without much trouble. And eagles, of course, must sometimes be almost starved a little.
Remember always that the food given to a trained hawk belongs to one or other of several categories, which rank differently as regards nutritive power. Highest on the list is the flesh of birds or other animals eaten immediately after they are killed, while the life-blood is still warm within them. The meals of wild hawks are, as a rule, of this description; and these accordingly, by virtue of their diet, as well as of their habits, are the most vigorous and healthy of all. Next in order comes the flesh of such creatures as have been killed long enough to grow cold. And in the last rank must be placed washed meat—artificially reduced to its least nutritive character. When it is desired to improve the condition of a hawk, food of the first class will most quickly and most surely effect the object. Any hawk which is found to be below par should have at the first opportunity at least one “bloody crop,”i.e.should either be allowed to take her pleasure on some quarry which she has herself killed, or be indulged with a pigeon, duck, fowl, or other animal which has just been killed. The flesh of animals, whether freshly killed or not, differs a good deal in quality. Pigeons, duck, plovers, and sparrows are about the most nourishing; chickens, rabbits, quails, larks, and mice, somewhat less so. The flesh of rooks, gulls, magpies, water-hens, and coots is not very palatable; and some trained hawks will not touch it. None are likely to improve in condition if fed upon it. There is nothing a trained hawk likes better than good tender beef, especially if it is slightly warmed before being given. It is also very sustaining, and will increase a hawk’s weight rapidly, when a generous allowance of it is made. It is, however, much heavierand more solid than the natural food of any hawk, and therefore apt, if freely given, to make her dull, slow, and sluggish. For sparrow-hawks and merlins it is distinctly bad, if often taken, and in large quantities at a time. These latter, when in flying order at the right season of the year, are, of course, almost always fed up in the field on the quarry they have last killed before finishing their day’s work, and the next morning have a few mouthfuls of similar food which has been killed the afternoon before. When a rook-hawk will readily feed up in the same way on her vanquished quarry, it will be convenient, occasionally at least, to let her do so. Game-hawks should also be allowed sometimes to take their pleasure on their own grouse, partridge, pheasant, or even woodcock; but in practice they are seldom lucky enough to get more than the heads and necks, though modern falconers who fly mostly for sport, and not “for the pot,” are often more liberal in this respect than their predecessors of the Middle Ages.
Goshawks, when kept to hares, or indeed to any quarry which taxes their utmost powers, should often be allowed to finish their meal on one of their victims. Between whiles they may often with advantage be regaled with washed meat only, or some not very appetising food. It is well to induce all hawks to believe that a kill after a hard flight means an extra good feast. But merlins and male sparrow-hawks must very seldom, if at all, know the taste of washed meat, or of any third-rate diet. Some of them, when in first-rate fettle, are very dainty, and will lose the pink of their condition if not indulged with their favourite food. These little hawks are exceedingly fond of swallows and some other very small birds; and although few people would be barbarous enough to deliberately kill any small bird except a sparrow, yet if a young martin should be picked up under the nest from which it has accidentally fallen, and given to a merlin, it will be odd if that hawk does not fly unusually well when next put on the wing. In the lark-hawking season, one of these active workers will not only keep herself in food, but often supply enough extra victims to provide a daily meal of the very best kind for a tiercel, or even a falcon, which happens then to be in moult. The short-winged hawks will also sometimes in one afternoon kill more than they could themselves eat in a week.
A not unimportant item of the commissariat is a supply of good tirings. A tiring may consist of anything tough which is appetising enough for a hawk to keep pulling and picking at itto satisfy her hunger. For tiercels and all hawks of about the same size, rabbits’ or leverets’ feet, with the lower part of the leg, make capital tirings. So do the necks of fowls and ducks, which a falconer should always cause to be reserved for him when any poultry is slain for the kitchen. The foot of an old hare is not too tough for a strong falcon. The small hawks will generally be kept employed for a good many minutes by the two outer joints of a duck’s or old pigeon’s wing. These tirings should be given whenever a hawk is short of exercise, or fidgety on the block or perch. Their effect is not only to strengthen all the muscles—for it is quite hard work picking the scanty scraps of food off the bones and skin amongst which they lie hid—but also to engross the attention of the hawk, which would otherwise very possibly be pining more or less sadly for freedom, and often jumping off in the vain endeavour to attain to that blessing. The frequent picking of bones also keeps a hawk’s beak from growing down at the point to an unnatural length. A man who tells you that he often has to cope his hawk stands detected of being in the habit of not giving her sufficient tirings. Another most valuable use of these tough morsels has been already referred to. It is discovered during the first period of manning the hawk, when the necessary job of carrying is found to be ten times more agreeable and better performed if, while the pupil has perforce to stand on the fist, she has some inducement to do so in the shape of a fowl’s “drumstick” or the wing of a goose, off which almost all the meat has already been picked. No better advice is given by Mr. Freeman—though every one of his counsels is admirable—than to prolong as much as possible the meals which a half-trained hawk takes on the fist. Often the delicacy on which you are regaling her will be tender in one part and tough in another. For instance, it may be the full-fleshed leg of some fowl, off which the meat can easily be torn, with a part of the back, consisting chiefly of skin and bone. If your rather shy pupil takes kindly to the least manageable part of her appointed dinner, let her pick at it, and laboriously polish with many applications of her beak the ill-covered bones of the back, stroking her from time to time with a pencil or with the right hand. Possibly she will not yet stand such acts of familiarity, but bate off. When she is on the fist again, let her recommence operations without taking any liberties with her. Reserve your attentions with the stick for the time when she will be busy discussing the more succulent morsels in themenu, and when she is more likely to submit, without much protest, to the indignityof being stroked. So also, while she is pulling contentedly at the juiciest parts of the joint, you may take her more freely into the presence of men, horses, dogs, and children—in fact, introduce her to more society. The bolder you become the more inclined she will be to let her mistrust prevail over her fondness for the feast, and the less exclusively she will confine her attention to it. Thus a pigeon’s wing, which it would take a fully-trained tiercel less than five minutes to dispose of, may, with a falcon caught only a fortnight ago, engage her attention for nearly half an hour.