The Art and Practice of Hawking
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Title: The Art and Practice of Hawking
Author: E. B. Michell
Illustrator: George Edward Lodge
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THE ART AND PRACTICE
OF HAWKING
[Illustration: _Falcons and Goshawk Weathering._]
THE
ART AND PRACTICE
OF HAWKING
BY
E. B. MICHELL
WITH THREE PHOTOGRAVURES BY G. E. LODGE
AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W. C.
LONDON
1900
TO THE
EARL AND COUNTESS OF WARWICK
AND ALL OTHER LOVERS OF HAWKING
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
PREFACE
Notwithstanding the large number of books, both ancient and modern,
which have been written on the art of Hawking, it cannot be said that
the English-speaking people generally have more than a very vague idea
of the character of the sport, or the mode in which it was, and still
is, conducted.
Yet, in an experience of Hawking which extends over more than thirty
years, the author has found that a great and increasing curiosity,
and even a real interest in the subject, prevails, especially amongst
sporting men, who are in many notable instances beginning to believe
that hawks and their owners have been unduly disparaged, and that there
is more to be said in their favour than has for the last two centuries
been imagined.
There has not been space in this volume to discuss the much-vexed
question how far the use of hawks is compatible with the preservation
of game. But it may be said here, without any reservation, that
wherever experiments have been actually tried, Hawking has been found
not to spoil but to improve the shooting.
The object of the author has been to describe as briefly as was
consistent with clearness the birds now chiefly used in the chase, and
the manner of training and flying them. His hope is that some of the
sportsmen who read these pages may, in spite of the difficulties which
they will have to encounter, resolve to give this old and honourable
sport a trial.
The use of technical terms has been avoided as far as possible; and
those which could not be excluded have been explained in the text. When
the reader is puzzled by any word, a reference to the Index will direct
him to the page where the meaning of it is given.
CONTENTS
PAGES
CHAPTER I
History and Literature
Antiquity of hawking in China--Introduction into Europe--Royal
and Imperial falconers--Decline of the sport--Survival and
revivals--Modern falconers--Early writers--Leading
authorities--Modern books 1-8
CHAPTER II
The Birds Used in Hawking
Three classes--Long-winged hawks: Ger-peregrine, and kindred
varieties, shaheens, barbary, saker, lanner, and desert
falcons, hobby, merlin, and kestrel--Short-winged hawks:
goshawks and sparrow-hawks--Eagles, golden, Bonelli's,
etc., falconets 9-39
CHAPTER III
Furniture and Fittings
Jesses--Bells--Swivels--Leashes--The screen-perch--Blocks--
Bow-perches--Hoods--Brails--The bath--The lure--Cadges--
Gloves--Mews 40-54
CHAPTER IV
Eyesses and Hack Hawks
Taking from the eyrie--Feeding--Turning out to hack--The
board system--Hacking to the lure, and to the hand--Learning
to fly--Dangers and diversions of hack--Taking up--The bow-net 55-69
CHAPTER V
Passage Hawks
Valk enswaard--Hawk-catcher's hut--The shrike sentinel--
Handling the wild-caught hawk--The sock--The dark cell--Prison
fare--Early discipline--Waking--Hooding--Carrying--Manning--
Pegging out 70-86
CHAPTER VI
Training and Entering
Reclamation of wild-caught and hack hawks--Making to the lure--
Calling off--The first quarry--Innocent deceptions--Making in--
Waiting on--Stooping to the lure--Exercise 87-100
CHAPTER VII
Rook-Hawking
Good and bad country--Entering to rooks--Throwing off--
Ringing flights--Shifting--Throwing up--Putting in--Riding
to hawks 101-114
CHAPTER VIII
Game-Hawking
Eyesses and passagers--Teaching to mount and to wait on--
Entering--Raking away--The pitch--The stoop--Pointers--
Speed and cunning of grouse--Partridges, black-game--Some
good bags 115-129
CHAPTER IX
Lark-Hawking
The hobby, ancient and modern--Daring larks--The merlin--
Difficulties of training and flying--Making in--Fishing-rod
trick--Good and bad larks--High flights--Double flights--
Winter larks 130-141
CHAPTER X
Gulls, Heron, Kite, Duck, etc.
Double flights at gulls--The Loo Club--Kite-hawking--Wild
ducks, magpies, plovers, woodcock, snipe, and other quarry 142-149
CHAPTER XI
The Goshawk
Hawks of the fist--Training--Rewards for good conduct--Yarak--
Pheasants, partridges, rabbits, and hares--The goshawk in
covert--Variety of quarry--Some good bags--A famous goshawk 150-159
CHAPTER XII
The Sparrow-Hawk
Vices and merits--A fine hawk for the bush--Partridge-hawking--
Blackbirds, quail, and other quarry--How to manage a
sparrow-hawk--A modern record 160-169
CHAPTER XIII
Home Life
The falconer's establishment--Good and bad falconers--
Hawk-houses--The falconer's day--Bathing--Weathering--
Exercise--Diet--Castings--Tirings--Rangle--Bedtime 170-191
CHAPTER XIV
Hawks in the Field
Hooding up--Accoutrements--Field tactics--Markers--Mounted
men--Successful and unsuccessful flights--Putting in--Picking
up--Consolation quarry--Disobedient hawks--A good quarry-book 192-212
CHAPTER XV
Lost Hawks
Carelessness and imprudence--A kill out of sight--A night
out--Search and recapture--Chance witnesses--Decoy hawks--
Winding up--Snaring--A fresh start 213-224
CHAPTER XVI
Accidents and Maladies
Broken feathers--Imping--Broken bones--Diagnosis--Croaks,
cramp, ague, apoplexy, frounce, inflammation, and fever--
Corns, broken talons, blain, craye, and other maladies 225-243
CHAPTER XVII
Moulting
Early and late moulting--Flying through the moult--Throwing
into the mews--Diet and management--Bad moulters--Intermewed
hawks--Physic and treatment 244-254
CHAPTER XVIII
Virtue and Vice
Good and bad hawks--Temper, shape, size, and colour--Style
of flying--Carrying--Soaring--Raking away--Checking--
Perching--Hood-shyness--Screaming--Refusing--Running
cunning--Seven deadly sins--Four cardinal virtues 255-274
CHAPTER XIX
Anecdotes and Adventures
Lessons from the quarry-book--The old authors--Modern
experiences--Peregrine and pigeon--A miraculous rabbit--
Queer hiding-places--Wild _v._ tame hawks--Merlin-hawking
with peregrines 275-284
X?
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTOGRAVURES
PAGE
Falcons and Goshawk Weathering _Frontispiece_
Death of the Rook 110
Sparrow-Hawk and Partridge 168
(_From Drawings by G. E. Lodge_)
OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
Shape of Wings 11
(_From a Drawing by Mrs. Sachs_)
Trained Kestrel "Thunderbolt," owned by Mr. R. Gardner 30
(_From a Photo by C. Reid, Wishaw, N.B._)
Hawk's Furniture 40
(_From a Drawing by the Author_)
Blocks and Perches 46
(_From a Drawing by the Author_)
Hawk's Furniture 48
(_From a Drawing by the Author_)
Cadge with Peregrines 52
(_From a Photo by C. Reid, Wishaw, N.B._)
Falcon and Tiercel Weathering 86
(_From a Photo by C. Reid, Wishaw, N.B._)
Pluming the Dead Grouse 127
(_From a Photo by C. Reid, Wishaw, N.B._)
Trained Merlin 132
(_From a Drawing by Mrs. Sachs_)
Trained Goshawk, "Gaiety Gal," owned by Mr. A. Newall 159
(_From a Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside_)
THE ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING
CHAPTER I
History and Literature
IT would be easy to fill a large volume with dissertations on the
antiquity of the art which is now called Falconry, and with records
of its history in different countries during the many centuries that
have elapsed since it was first practised. In a treatise on practical
hawking, such as the present, there is no room for such matter; and the
omission will be the more readily excused when it is explained that
only a short time ago the antiquities of the art, and the literature in
which its records are embodied, were most carefully and ably explored
by Mr. J. E. Harting, the erudite Secretary of the Linnean Society,
whose catalogue of books on hawking contains a reference to every known
publication on the subject (_Bibliotheca Accipitraria_, London, 1891).
The actual origin of hawking, as of other old sports, is naturally
hidden in the obscurity of the far-away past. No one would suppose that
it was practised as early in the world's history as the sister sports
of hunting and fishing. But Mr. Harting's researches have resulted
in convincing him that it was known at least as early as 400 B.C.,
although its introduction into Europe must clearly be placed at a much
later date. It is remarkable enough that the Greeks, whose country
abounds in wild hawks, should have known nothing of their use in the
service of man. Homer, indeed, speaks of the mountain falcon as "the
most nimble of birds," ([Greek: êute kirkos oresphin, elaphrotatos
peteênôn], _Il._ xxii. 139); but Sophocles, in alluding to the triumphs
of man in taming and using wild creatures, omits all mention of the
training of hawks, which is certainly more worthy of notice than mere
bird-catching or the breaking-in of oxen (Soph. _Antig._ 343). Even the
later Roman authors refer to the use of trained hawks as an unfamiliar
practice, in vogue only amongst some of the barbarian tribes.
Until at least some centuries after the Christian era, China and other
countries in the Far East seem to have been the chief if not the only
homes of falconry. But the Lombards, when they settled in North Italy,
in the latter half of the sixth century, were acquainted with the art;
and before the end of the ninth century it was familiar to the Saxons
in England and throughout the West of Europe. Henry the Fowler, who
became Emperor in 919, seems to have been so nicknamed on account of
his devotion to this form of sport, which was already a favourite with
princes and magnates. The Saxon King Ethelbert wrote to the Archbishop
of Mayence for hawks able to take cranes. King Harold habitually
carried a trained hawk on his fist; and from the time of the Norman
Conquest hawking was a sport as highly honoured in the civilised world
as hunting. The greatest impulse that was ever given to the sport in
Western Europe was derived from the returning Crusaders, many of whom,
in the course of their travels to the East, had become acquainted with
the Oriental falconers and the Asiatic modes of training and flying
hawks. Conspicuous amongst such Crusaders was the Emperor Frederick
II., who brought back with him some Asiatic hawks and their trainers,
and who not only was himself an enthusiastic and accomplished falconer,
but even declared that falconry was the noblest of all arts. From that
time--early in the thirteenth century--for more than four hundred
years falconry flourished in Europe, as well as in the East, as a
fashionable sport amongst almost all classes. As in the case of hunting
and fishing, its attractions as a sport were supplemented by the very
material merits it possessed as a means of procuring food. While the
prince and the baron valued their falcon-gentle for its high pitch and
lordly stoop, the yeoman and the burgher set almost equal store on the
less aristocratic goshawk and the plebeian sparrow-hawk as purveyors of
wholesome delicacies for the table. Even the serf or villein was not
forgotten in the field, and was expected, or at least allowed, to train
and carry on his fist the humble but well-bred and graceful kestrel.
During this long period the example of Henry the Fowler was followed
freely by many of the most celebrated and powerful rulers in European
countries. Hardly a prominent personage amongst the great conquerors
and lawgivers in mediæval times was unacquainted with the art. Most
of them were as enthusiastic in their devotion to it as they were
to the more serious objects of their ambition. It would be wearisome
to recount the long list of royal falconers; and it will suffice to
merely mention a few of the most notable examples. Thus Edward III. was
accompanied on his warlike expedition with a whole train of falconers.
His father had been indulged in his imprisonment with liberty to go
hawking. Shakespeare has familiarised his readers with the hawking
parties of Henry VI. and his Queen (_2 Hen. VI._ ii. I); and few
people have failed to read the story of the broken leaping-pole which
precipitated Henry VIII. into a ditch as he was following a hawk. Louis
XI. and a host of French kings, including Francis I., were ardent
falconers, as were many of the kings of Castile and Arragon, Sardinia,
and Hungary. Henry of Navarre was excelled by few men in his passion
for this sport. James IV. of Scotland gave a jewelled hood to one of
the Flemings, because the latter had won a match in which his hawk
flew against the King's. And James I. of England enjoyed nothing more
keenly than a day's hawking, declaring that if a man had only patience
and good-temper enough to contend with the disappointments inseparable
from it, the sport would be preferable to hunting. Catherine II. of
Russia was as great at falconry as at most other things, and specially
delighted in the flight with merlins. Ecclesiastics, both great and
small, were not a whit behind the laity in their devotion to the sport
of the air. It was thought no scorn for a holy-water clerk to carry
a "musket" or male sparrow-hawk. Not only did Cardinal Beaufort fly
his falcons with those of the great Duke of Gloucester, but no less
a potentate than Pope Leo X. was constantly in the field at Ravenna,
and even incurs the blame of the great D'Arcussia for being in the
habit of too soundly rating his comrades during a flight. The hawking
establishments of all the earlier Bourbons were kept up in more than
royal style, and were supplied annually with rare falcons from many
parts of the world.
It was the invention of shot-guns that struck the first and most
deadly blow at the popularity of hawking. It was soon discovered
that wild-fowl, rabbits, and most kinds of game could be captured
much more easily and cheaply by the aid of "vile saltpetre" than by
the laborious and costly processes involved in the reclaiming and
moulting and conditioning of hawks. Economy, as well as novelty,
pleaded in favour of the new sport of shooting. At the same time, the
common use of fowling-pieces added a fresh and formidable danger for
the owners of hawks, already exposed to a thousand unfair risks of
losing their favourites. In the unsettled state to which Europe was
reduced by the innumerable wars consequent on the Reformation, it was
impossible for falconers to identify or punish those who recklessly or
deliberately slaughtered a neighbour's lost hawks; and although the
offenders were still liable to serve penalties, they could snap their
fingers at the protective laws. Finally, the more rapid subdivision
of the land, and its enclosure with fences for agricultural purposes,
spoilt, for the falconer's purposes, large tracts of country which had
formerly been the most suitable, and was especially hurtful to the
flying of the long-winged hawks, for which an expanse of open ground
is indispensable. On the Continent these various causes operated
surely but slowly to displace falconry in the public estimation. But
in England a special circumstance almost ruined it at one blow. The
outbreak of the Great Civil War interrupted rudely all peaceful sports,
and its disasters destroyed a vast number of those who were the best
patrons of hawking. From the blow then struck English falconry never
rallied in any general sense. Certainly it did revive, or rather
survive, to a certain extent. It would be wrong to suppose that the
sport has ever been extinct in the British Isles, as so many writers
are fond of reiterating. But its devotees have kept it up without
any of the pomp and show which once distinguished it, carrying on in
comparative privacy, and in the retirement of rather remote spots, an
amusement in which the difficulties always besetting the sport were
aggravated by a thousand new dangers and annoyances.
The annals of falconry, since it was deposed from its fashionable
place--in England by the Great Rebellion, and afterwards in France by
the Revolution--are obscure, and for the most part buried in oblivion.
Here and there the name of a notable falconer, professional or amateur,
emerges from the mist, showing us that the sport was still carried on
with vigour by a few. In the middle of the eighteenth century Lord
Orford flew kites in the eastern counties, and this sport, as well
as rook-hawking and heron-hawking, was successively carried on by
the Falconers' Society, the Falconers' Club, and the High Ash Club,
which latter existed from about 1792 to later than 1830, and included
amongst its members Lord Berners, Colonel Thornton, and other sporting
celebrities. In Scotland falconry has always been kept up. The life
of John Anderson covers the whole of the last half of the eighteenth
century, as well as more than a quarter of the nineteenth. This
accomplished trainer of hawks was for the first twenty years or so
of the present century in charge of the Renfrewshire establishment
kept by Fleming of Barochan, and flown chiefly at partridges and
woodcocks. During the early years of the same century, until 1814,
Colonel Thornton did a great deal of hawking on his own account, at
first in Yorkshire, and afterwards at Spy Park, in Wiltshire. From
1823 to 1833 Mr. John Sinclair flew woodcocks with success in Ireland.
In 1840 Lord O'Neill and Colonel Bonham took a moor in Ross-shire
for hawking; and in the following year the Loo Club was started for
heron-hawking in Holland, under the auspices of Mr. E. Clough Newcome.
This influential club continued to flourish till 1853. Its place was
taken, not many years after, by the Old Hawking Club, which, although
it has never undertaken the flight at herons, continues to carry on an
annual campaign against rooks and game with great credit and success.
In France a hawking club was started in 1865, under the title of the
Champagne Club, but was not long-lived; and several minor attempts
at organising new clubs have been made in England during the last
thirty years. There are at the present moment at least thirty private
establishments in England alone where trained hawks are kept and flown,
besides several in Scotland and Ireland. The names of several of the
leading amateurs now living will be mentioned in this and following
chapters.
Of professional falconers, the supply has sadly dwindled away since
the time when the office of Grand Falconer was something more than
the hereditary title of the Dukes of St. Albans. It was not, however,
until quite recent years that the supply became quite unequal to
the demand. At the death of John Anderson in 1832 there were able
successors to keep alive the best traditions of the old Scotch school.
Foremost among them was Peter Ballantine, of whom, as well as of Mr.
Newcome, excellent likenesses are published in Mr. Harting's fine work,
_Bibliotheca Accipitraria_. This accomplished trainer survived until
1884. Nearly contemporary with him were the brothers Barr, whose names
are frequently mentioned in these pages. While these and others upheld
the sport in Scotland, England, Ireland, and France--for John Barr
acted as the falconer of the Champagne Club--John Pells in Norfolk,
once falconer to the Duke of Leeds, attained to great efficiency and
repute; and the names of Bots and Möllen became celebrated in Holland
as the successful hawk-catchers and servants of the Loo Club. Later
still, John Frost acted for eighteen years as the energetic and skilful
falconer of the Old Hawking Club. He was succeeded by George Oxer,
who, with the Retfords (James and William) and the sons of John Frost,
is still living. There are at the present moment several very young
falconers who bid fair to attain distinction, though their training
is derived mostly from lessons imparted to them by the amateurs who
have brought them out. It is to be hoped that, now the facilities
for travelling are so immensely increased, some modern imitator of
Frederick II. will bring back from India a native falconer or two,
whose experience in the tropics would be invaluable, and thus infuse
new life into the professional world of Europe.
Of amateurs there has been for some years past no lack in England;
and want of space alone prevents the enumeration of the distinguished
falconers who still keep up in the British islands and dependencies
the best traditions of their art. Amongst these it would be unfair
to pass over the most conspicuous names, such as those of the late
Lord Lilford and Captain Salvin and Mr. William Brodrick, the first
named as justly famous for his acquaintance with hawks as for his
knowledge of ornithology. Captain Salvin first familiarised the modern
English people with the training of cormorants, and with the flight
with peregrines at rooks. Mr. Brodrick illustrated with his own
admirable coloured figures the handsome and useful book on falconry
which he published jointly with Captain Salvin. Another joint-author
with the latter was the Rev. Gage Earle Freeman, who for many years
most successfully flew, in a far from perfect country, peregrines
at grouse, merlins at larks, goshawks and sparrow-hawks at various
quarry. The small book which owes its authorship to these two masters
of the art has long been out of print. It is impossible to praise it
too highly as a handbook for beginners. Of living falconers, no one
can be compared in experience and general knowledge with Major Hawkins
Fisher, of the Castle, Stroud, whose game-hawks have for more than
fourteen years annually killed good bags of grouse at Riddlehamhope, in
Northumberland, and whose favourite peregrines, such as "Lady Jane,"
"Lundy," and "Band of Hope," have been a terror to partridges in Wilts
and Gloucestershire. Mr. St. Quintin, of Scampston Hall, Yorkshire,
probably the most successful game-hawker of whom we have any record,
has recently brought to a high degree of perfection the flight with
peregrines at gulls. The fine sport shown at rooks every year in
Wiltshire by the Old Hawking Club, is due chiefly to the ability and
energy of their secretary, the Hon. Gerald Lascelles. In flights with
short-winged hawk of both descriptions, Mr. John Riley, of Putley
Court, Herefordshire, is _facile princeps_. The late Rev. W. Willemot
did some good work with falcons at gulls before this branch of the
sport was taken up by Mr. St. Quintin; and the late Mr. T. J. Mann, of
Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth, was successful with rooks and partridges
in Cambridgeshire. Probably the most splendid establishment of hawks
in England during the last forty years was that of the late Maharajah
Dhuleep Singh at Elvedon. Falconry in India has been extensively
practised by many English officers quartered in that part of the
world, and notably by General Griffiths, and more lately by Captain
S. Biddulph, who has probably killed a greater variety of wild quarry
than any European now living, and whose portraits of trained hawks are
above all praise. Colonel Delmé Radcliffe, Colonel Brooksbank, Colonel
Watson, Captain Crabbe, the late Sir Henry Boynton, Mr. A. W. Reed,
Major Anne, and Mr. Arthur Newall, are all enthusiastic and successful
falconers. Colonel Ayshford Sanford, Major C. W. Thompson, of the 7th
Dragoon Guards, and the writer of these pages, have had considerable
success with merlins.
In France, the names of MM. Barachin, Sourbets, Arbel, and Belvallette
for the short-winged hawks, and MM. Pichot and Paul Gervais for other
kinds, require honourable notice; and in Russia that of the late M.
Constantine Haller will always be remembered. It is not many years
since the latter originated and carried into effect the scheme of an
International Hawking Congress, to be held near St. Petersburg. This
was attended by many Asiatic falconers, and one from England. But the
impossibility of finding suitable wild quarry in accessible places
sadly interfered with the success of the meeting; and the result was
not proportionate to the great trouble of organising it.
It will naturally be supposed that a sport so fashionable, so
prevalent, and so difficult as falconry, has been discussed at length
in many writings and in many languages. For the very extensive
literature treating of its art and practice in different parts of
the world, the reader is referred to Mr. Harting's _Bibliotheca
Accipitraria_, already mentioned, in which a full account is given of
no less than three hundred and seventy-eight works on the subject. Of
these, eighty-two are in English, and eighty-four in French. The German
publications number forty-six, the Italian thirty-eight, the Japanese
fourteen, and there are several in Spanish, Russian, Latin, Greek, and
Chinese.
The most notable works, besides those already mentioned, are the
Latin treatise written by the Emperor Frederick II.; _The Boke of St.
Albans_, by Dame Juliana Berners, 1486; the volumes published by
Turbervile in 1575, by Latham in 1615, and by Bert on the short-winged
hawks in 1635. Still more interesting are the books written in French
by Charles d'Arcussia, which date from 1598 to 1627. The nineteenth
century has produced several important works, including the small
treatise by Sir John Sebright, 1826, and the splendid illustrated
volume by Schlegel and Wulverhorst, 1853. The Badminton Library
contains half a volume on Falconry from the very able pen of Mr. Gerald
Lascelles; and the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ has an article on the
subject by Colonel Delmé Radcliffe.
To look for any real revival of falconry in Europe would be altogether
quixotic. Lucky indeed may the falconer of the future consider
himself if the art even survives. Already the goshawk, the ger, and
the golden eagle are almost extinct in England; sparrow-hawks have
become so rare that constant advertisements offering to buy one
remain without response; the harmless hobby and innocuous merlin are
ferociously persecuted, and have been exterminated in most of their
favourite haunts. A lost hawk has become almost a synonym for a
murdered hawk. Owners are beset with enemies on every hand, besides
being plagued and pestered by ignorant and impertinent intruders, if
ever they venture with their hawks into a public place. The country
becomes more and more unsuitable for hawking purposes. Upon many of
the most open spaces bricks and mortar intrude; upon other parts the
vexatious small plantations designed as shelters for game. Even when a
suitable grouse-moor or partridge-ground is found in want of a tenant,
obstacles may be raised. A baseless but deep-rooted prejudice deters
many lessors from allowing trained hawks to be flown over their land,
on the absurd plea that it will spoil it for subsequent tenants. In
short, the impediments with which the modern falconer has to contend
are too many and too great for any but a few very determined sportsmen.
These, when they have once mastered the initial difficulties, usually
persist in preferring the sport to any other. "Once a falconer, always
a falconer," is a maxim of universal truth. And the fraternal spirit
which animates most English falconers--and, for that matter, most
falconers throughout the world--is not the least agreeable feature
presented by this ancient and honourable field sport.
CHAPTER II
The Birds used in Hawking
Of the numerous birds of prey which are found in various parts of the
globe, a good many have been employed in the service of man as agents
in the pursuit of other birds and of four-footed animals, partly for
purposes of supplying him with food, and partly for sport. It is
more than probable that others might be similarly trained and flown,
especially some of the American and Australian hawks, which seem
suitable for the purpose, but which have never yet, as far as we know,
been thus taken in hand. It is not, however, proposed to describe at
length any members of the large family of Raptores, except such as are
known to have been used in hawking; and with regard to those which have
been flown only in remote parts of the world, considerations of space
necessitate a very brief reference.
It has usually been said that the list of birds used in hawking
includes only two main divisions--the long-winged hawks, as falconers
call them, known to naturalists under the name of "falcons"; and the
short-winged hawks, to which the men of science apply specially the
name of hawks. This ornithological classification of falcons on the
one hand and hawks on the other, is not a very happy one; for in the
general public estimation, as well as in falconers' phraseology, every
falcon is a hawk, although every hawk may not be properly called a
falcon. The one term is of classic, and the other of Teutonic origin;
and it was too late, when books about birds first began to be written
scientifically, to attempt to establish a hard-and-fast difference
between words which had already passed current for centuries as
meaning pretty much the same thing. Moreover, hawking, which, if the
naturalists' view of the matter were accepted, ought to be concerned,
like the French _autourserie_, with the short-winged hawks only, has
long been considered in England a mere synonym for falconry, which
also, if interpreted strictly according to the ornithological theory,
ought to be regarded as dealing with the long-winged species.
The two-fold division, however, no matter whether it is into falcons
and hawks, or into short-winged and long-winged hawks, seems to be
insufficient and unsatisfactory. For eagles, which have been, and still
are, extensively used in a sport for which the only English names are
hawking and falconry, remain unincluded in the two usually accepted
classes. No eagle can properly be called either a hawk or a falcon;
and in order to find a place for them amongst the birds trained and
flown at quarry, it seems necessary to institute a third class. What
order of precedence should be taken by such new class is a matter of
small consequence. In symmetry of shape, in its mode of flying, its
character, and its tastes, the eagle is as inferior to the true hawk as
the latter has always been deemed to be to the true falcon; and in this
work, as in others on falconry, the first place has been retained for
the long-winged hawks, and the second for the short-winged, leaving a
third place for what little it seems necessary to say about such eagles
as we know to have been flown at game.
The long-winged hawk is known by the following characteristics:--The
second primary feather in the wing, reckoning from the outside, is the
longest, or at least equal in length to any other, as in the merlin,
which has the second and third feathers very nearly or quite of the
same length. The upper mandible has on each of its sides, about a third
part of the distance from the point to the cere, a projection somewhat
resembling a very blunt tooth. The eye is dark brown. The wing is long
enough in the outer joint to come down, when closed, considerably more
than half-way between the end of the tail coverts and the end of the
tail itself, and in some cases, as in the hobby, as far as the tail, or
even farther.
In the short-winged hawks the wing is comparatively short in the outer
joint, and, when expanded, presents a rounded appearance at the end,
the fourth primary being the longest, and the first very short. That
emargination, or narrowing in, of the feather near its end, which is
observable in the first two primaries of the long-winged hawk, is still
more pronounced in the short-winged, and is conspicuous in the third
and fourth primaries also. The tail is long, and large when expanded.
The iris is of some shade of yellow, light or dark. The upper mandible
curves in a smooth line, without any projecting tooth.
[Illustration: WING of LONG-WINGED HAWK
WING of SHORT-WINGED HAWK
WING of EAGLE
SHAPE OF WINGS]
In the eagles the tail is shorter and stouter. The outer joint of the
wing is shorter than in the falcons, the wing deriving its power from
the feathers near the body rather than from the outer ones. The beak
is longer in shape than that of the other two sorts, and the legs are
proportionately stouter. The size of the smallest eagle is very much
greater than that of the largest falcon or hawk.
The differences which exist in the shape of the wing between the
three classes will perhaps be best appreciated by a glance at the
accompanying illustration, in which a characteristic wing of each kind
is figured.
The French have convenient terms (see Belvallette, _Traité
d'Autourserie_, Paris, 1887) which express in themselves, with great
perspicuity, though perhaps a little exaggeration, the different
methods of flying employed by the short- and the long-winged hawks.
The latter they describe as _ramiers_, or rowers, because their mode
of progression through the air resembles that of an oarsman, or
rather sculler, striking with repeated beats of his sculls; whilst
they describe the short-winged hawks (with eagles and all birds that
have rounded wings) as _voiliers_, or sailers, maintaining that their
impulse is gained by the pressure of the air against the wing, upon
which it acts as upon a sail. Many people may be inclined to call such
a distinction rather fanciful, and even question its truth; but the
mere fact that the two words have been accepted as correctly denoting
the two separate styles of flying, shows what a marked difference
between them has been generally admitted to exist. It will be seen that
the mode of flying the "rowers" and the "sailers" at quarry is also
very distinct.
In accordance with the three-fold classification above suggested, I
now proceed to mention the various birds used in hawking under the
successive headings of--(1) Long-winged hawks; (2) Short-winged hawks;
and (3) Eagles.
I. THE LONG-WINGED HAWKS (Falcons)[1]
[1] It should be observed that although the term falcon has an
established meaning among ornithologists as a name for the long-winged
hawks, it is used by falconers in quite a different acceptation. In
hawking phraseology it is applied, in contradistinction to the term
tiercel, to the female of the larger sorts of long-winged hawks, and
especially to the female peregrine. Thus when a falconer is described
as being possessed of "two falcons," or a hare is mentioned as having
been taken by a "falcon," the reader is expected to know that the
female peregrine is referred to, and not a male peregrine, or a saker,
lanner, or any other kind of hawk.
Perhaps the leading characteristic in the flying of this kind of
hawk is that it habitually captures its prey, or, as falconers term
it, "quarry," by making a dash or shot at it, technically called a
stoop, from some position where it can command an advantage in speed
and force. In many cases the bird is itself so conscious of this
natural aptitude for stooping in preference to mere following, that
it habitually places itself, when on the look-out for food, at a
considerable height, from which it can descend with great ease and
velocity upon any victim which may happen to be passing beneath,
using the principle of gravity to increase the force of its downward
flight; and in several departments of the falconer's art the trainer
endeavours to encourage the tendency of his hawk to mount and make the
most of the advantage so gained. The long-winged hawks are as a rule
trained to come to the lure, and not to the fist, although for the sake
of convenience it is sometimes found advisable to make them to both
practices.
Greenland Falcon (_Falco candicans_)
Female--Length, about 23 inches; wing, 16.5; tail, 9. Male--Length,
about 20 inches; wing, 14.5; tail, 8.
The general colour in the adult of both sexes is white, with more
or less faint bars of light brownish grey on the upper plumage, and
spots of the same colour underneath. The young birds of both sexes are
considerably darker than their elders, with a much larger allowance
of darker grey brown on the plumage both above and below. These dark
patches and markings become fainter and less abundant at each moult,
until in very old birds they almost vanish, leaving the hawk to appear
at a distance merely white. The bars on the back, shoulders, and wings
are often shaped like the two arms of an anchor; and the spots on the
breast are mostly tear-shaped, especially after the first moult. The
legs, feet, cere, and eyelids are bluish grey in the young birds, but
after the first moult become yellow, strengthening in colour at each
moult.
It will be seen by reference to the remarks on comparative merits of
falcons (Chap. XVIII.), that in proportions this species excels all
the other gers. It is also the most majestic in its appearance and
attitudes, and the most noble in the expression of its eyes and, if
the term may be permitted, of its countenance. It was not so much used
in the Middle Ages as the other gers, by reason of the difficulty of
obtaining it, but was probably the most highly valued of all. The late
Lord Lilford, who in quite modern times had a good deal of experience
with this species, opined that it was an excellent flier and stooper,
but a poor "footer," that it was the reverse of hardy, and difficult
to keep in condition. When observed in the wild state in Scotland
it was found to kill a great many rooks, and to be dreaded by the
wild-fowl, but not to be partial to game, though it was seen to make an
ineffectual stoop at a blackcock.
Iceland Falcon (_Falco islandus_)
Female--Length, about 24 inches; wing, about 17; tail, 9-1/4.
Male--Length, about 21 inches; wing, 15; tail, 8-1/4.
In young birds the upper parts are dark greyish brown or brownish grey,
each feather barred and tipped with a much lighter grey. The under
plumage is dusky white, splashed more or less profusely, especially
on the breast and flanks, with streaky spots and splashes of greyish
brown. At the first moult the brown tinge begins to disappear, and
the spots on the breast and flanks become more heart-shaped than
longitudinal, and less profuse. In subsequent moults the spots
become smaller and smaller, and the whole plumage fades to a lighter
grey, the bars on the upper plumage often softening gradually to a
greyish white. The sides of the head and lower nape are white, with
brownish lead-coloured shaft marks in the immature plumage, fading and
diminishing as the hawk moults. The moustachial streak is wanting in
this variety.
This species of ger was very highly esteemed in antiquity; and
individual falcons were occasionally presented by the kings of Denmark
to foreign potentates as a high compliment. In modern times it has been
found delicate, and difficult to keep in health. Mr. Newcome had some
which flew well at herons, but did not find them so generally effective
as peregrines. The late Maharajah Dhuleep Singh flew them with success
at hares. Lord Lilford, however, was unable to get them to fly rabbits
or hares, and found them liable to a troublesome affection of the feet.
Norway Falcon (_Falco gyrfalco_)
Female--Length, about 22 inches; wing, 16; tail, 9. Male--Length,
19-1/2 inches; wing, 14; tail, 8-1/4.
In the young the general colour of the upper plumage is a lead-coloured
brown, each feather tipped and margined with a somewhat lighter
brown or buff. The flight feathers are also similarly margined. The
lower back is sometimes tinged with grey. The tail is tipped with
white, and barred rather closely with a speckly buff. The breast is
profusely streaked with longitudinal blotches on a white ground, as
in the peregrine; but these markings are of a rather duller brown.
At the moult the markings on the under plumage diminish greatly in
size and number, especially on and near the chin, and become more or
less tear-shaped--this tendency to decrease continuing in subsequent
moults. In the upper plumage the brown is replaced by slatey grey,
barred with a lighter blue-grey, which in patches, especially upon
parts of the feathers which are habitually hidden, are nearly white.
The tail becomes slatey brown, with narrow bars of brownish grey. This
species has a broad well-marked moustachial streak, which is dark brown
in the immature and dark grey in the adult. The cere and eyelids are
blue-grey, and the legs and feet bluish lead colour; but all become
yellow in the adult.
This species is found not only in Norway, but also along the whole
expanse of Northern Europe and Asia. It is the nearest in colouring and
disposition to the peregrine, and the most remote from the Greenlander.
Lord Lilford considered that it was not so fast as the Greenlander,
and its shape is certainly not so indicative either of speed or of
strength. John Barr was sent over by Captain Dugmore some few years
ago to Norway, and brought back sixteen of these hawks. They flew
beautifully to the lure, turning more quickly than a peregrine, and
stooping with greater dash, but were of little use in the field, and
mostly fell speedy victims to the croaks or other maladies.
Labrador Falcon (_Falco labradorus_)
This is another species of the ger family, found, as its name imports,
in Labrador. It is of a much darker coloration than even the Norway
falcon, but not very different in measurements. It has not, as far as I
can learn, been trained for sporting purposes, though no doubt it very
well might be.[2]
[2] Although the name gyrfalco--the gyrating or circling falcon--is
now appropriated by most ornithologists to the Norway birds, all the
foregoing were included by the old falconers under the name ger, gyr,
or jer. They are all so styled, and very properly, by modern usage.
They are indeed little, if anything, more than climatic varieties of
the same bird, and although it has not been ascertained beyond a doubt
that they interbreed, this is highly probable. The lightest variety
of each one species is almost, if not quite, undistinguishable from
the darkest of the next; and the character of all is similar enough
to admit of their being trained and treated in the same way. From the
falconer's point of view, there will certainly be less difference
between one Iceland falcon and one of either of the two nearest allied
species than there may be between two individual specimens of _F.
islandus_. They will all therefore be dealt with in the remaining
chapters under the same general name of gers, unless when any special
consideration involves a more specific indication.
The difference of size between the two sexes in the case of these
splendid birds is, as it will be seen, considerable. But both are so
superior in speed and strength to any creatures at which they are at
all likely to be flown in England, that the list of quarry suitable
for the gerfalcon will, with a very few exceptions, serve for the ger
tiercel also. This list includes gulls of all kinds, herons, rooks and
crows, wood-pigeon, black-game, grouse, partridges, hares and rabbits,
wild-duck of all descriptions, Norfolk plover, and all the sea-fowls
found on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, except swans, and
perhaps wild geese. The gerfalcon will also take these latter, as well
as kites and cranes, peacocks, ptarmigan, and bustards, at which the
best of them may be flown in countries where such birds are to be found
in sufficiently open places. It is recorded of Henry, king of Navarre,
that he had a gerfalcon which Scaliger declares to have struck down
in his sight a buzzard, two wild geese, divers kites, a crane, and a
swan (Sir Thomas Browne, cited by Harting, _Bibliotheca Accipitraria_,
xxvii.). The flight of the ger is marked by an appearance of power
suitable to its size and shape, and combines in an extraordinary degree
swiftness and the power of turning readily. When taught to wait on, it
does so in majestic style, often at a stupendous height; and its stoop
from that direction is so "hard," as the old falconers termed it, or
in other words so swift and impetuous, that the quarry is less often
clutched and held than struck down with a blow as the hawk passes, and
is often found either killed or altogether disabled by the violence of
the shock. So great, indeed, is the vehemence with which the ger flies
and stoops, that the old masters warned their pupils not to work them
long on any occasion, for fear of tiring them, and thus lowering their
"pitch," or impairing their powers of mounting.
Gers have not had a very fair trial in the hands of modern falconers.
They have seldom come into their possession under favourable
conditions. Greenlanders, especially, have for the most part been
brought to European shores by ships, upon which they were caught at
sea by men quite unacquainted with the proper mode of treating a
wild-caught hawk. Almost always their plumage has suffered badly; and
they themselves, having been kept alive on unsuitable or scanty food,
have been reduced so low as to permanently lose some of their natural
strength and vitality. The same thing may be said of several Icelanders
and Norwegians which have reached the hands of the falconer in pitiable
plight. Gers are very seldom taken on the passage in Holland, although
one tiercel, captured by Adrian Möllen in 1878, was acquired and
trained by the Old Hawking Club, and proved a fine performer at rooks.
Reference has already been made to the gers brought by John Barr from
Norway. Mr. Newcome, who in the treatment of peregrines was excelled by
no falconer of modern times, was dissatisfied with the gers which he
trained, and found them difficult to keep in condition.
D'Arcussia, who, of course, had many gers under his charge, declares
that their principal excellence was in mounting, whereas in the
downward stoop the peregrine might be awarded the palm. This opinion,
however, can hardly be reconciled with the more forcible and striking
words which he uses in another passage, where he tells us that having
trained some gers for partridges he took them out before a company of
experts, who, after seeing these hawks fly, were "disgusted with all
other hawks."
Peregrine (_Falco peregrinus_)
Female--Length, about 18 inches; wing, 14; tail, 7; tarsus, 2-1/4.
Male--Length, about 16 inches; wing, 12; tail, 6; tarsus, 2.
In young birds of both sexes the upper plumage is a more or less dark
brown, inclining in some individuals to chocolate colour, and in others
to black, each feather of the back, wing, and tail coverts tipped
with a lighter and more rufous brown. The chin, neck, breast, thighs,
and whole under plumage is more or less dull creamy white, streaked
plentifully with longitudinal blotches of dark brown, which are thin
and small at the neck, but become broader and bigger as they approach
the lower part of the breast, dying away again towards the vent. The
tail is greyish brown on the upper surface, tipped with more or less
rufous white, and barred with five or six rather irregular and rather
faint bands of darker brown. The under part of the tail is very faint
brownish grey, barred with a somewhat darker hue of the same colour.
The sides of the head and neck are dull creamy white, streaked with
very small dashes and markings of dark brown. On the under side of the
eyebrow, passing round the eyelids, is a patch or streak of very dark
brown, and a broad streak of the same colour or of black reaches like
a moustache from near the back of the upper mandible backwards for an
inch.
The legs, feet, cere, and eyelids vary from light blue-grey to greenish
yellow and pale ochre; beak, light bluish grey, darkening to black at
the tip; claws--called always by falconers "talons"--black, as in other
hawks of all kinds. In the first moult the brown of the whole upper
plumage is replaced by a slatey blue, each feather from the shoulders
to the end of the tail barred transversely and tipped more or less
distinctly with a lighter shade of blue-grey. The slate colour on the
crown and side of the head, including the moustache, is of a dark hue.
The under plumage, instead of being streaked longitudinally with brown,
becomes at the first moult spotted and splashed with markings of dark
grey, which are partly transverse and partly shaped like an arrow-head
or tear-drop, especially on the throat and gorge. At each successive
moult these spots and markings become more transverse and bar-like, and
also narrower and more sparse on the parts nearest the chin, until in
very old birds they disappear on the chin and throat, leaving a blank
surface of pure creamy white. Even before the first moult the feet and
legs begin to assume a yellow colour; and by the time the first moult
is over, they and the cere and eyelids have changed to a more or less
decided yellow, which as the bird grows old develops into a rich gold.
Both sexes undergo the same changes in plumage, but it should be said
that these hawks at all ages vary considerably in size and shape,
and still more in their colouring. It is not unusual to see an eyess
which has the head and parts of the upper plumage nearly black, while
the brown of others at the same age is as light as cocoa, with buff
edgings. Some detailed remarks as to the size and shape of peregrines
and other hawks will be found in Chapter XVIII., where it will be seen
that some are of much more prepossessing appearance than others.
Speaking generally, the peregrine may be regarded as the most perfect
type of combined strength, speed, and destructive power in birds. The
proportions are such as could not be altered with any advantage, and
adapt the hawk to a greater variety of flight than any other. This
reason, and the fact that it is to be found in almost all parts of the
habitable world, have always made it a favourite with falconers; and at
the present day it is more highly esteemed in Europe than any other,
even including the nobler gers.
The female--to which sex alone falconers allow the application
of the name of falcon--may be flown with success in this country
at herons, gulls of all kinds, ducks of all kinds, crows, rooks,
grouse, black-game, partridge, pheasant, woodcock, landrail, Norfolk
plover, curlew, and other sea birds of about the same size, magpies,
wood-pigeons, and doves. She may also generally, if desired, be taught
to fly at hares, and no doubt at rabbits. Occasionally she may take
plovers and snipe, jackdaws, kestrels, and smaller birds. In India her
list includes wild geese, cranes, bitterns, ibis, and bustard.
The male peregrine--always called a tiercel (tassel, or tiercelet),
because he is about a third smaller in size than his sister--may
be flown at gulls, teal, widgeon, partridges, woodcock, landrail,
starling, and the smaller sea birds, magpies, and doves; and when
exceptionally strong and courageous, will succeed to a greater or less
extent with rooks, crows, jackdaws, grouse, wood-pigeons, and kestrels.
In India and Eastern countries the francolin and the florican, and
several sorts of duck and plovers, may be added to the list.
The peregrine at different ages was described in old times by a
great variety of names, some of which are now little used, or even
understood. Thus, in the eyrie or nest, from the time when she was
"disclosed," or hatched, for a fortnight or three weeks she was called
an eyess (or nyas, from the French _niais_). When able to move about
on her legs she became a ramage hawk; and when she could jump or
flit from branch to branch, a brancher. After leaving the nest and
becoming fledged, as the term is for other birds, she was described
as a soar-hawk or sore-hawk (French, _sor_, from the Latin _saurus_,
reddish brown); and when her feathers were all fully grown down she was
said to be summed, whereas before this time she remained unsummed. The
period during which she could properly be called a soar-hawk lasted,
according to some eminent writers, from June 15 to September 15, when
the migrating time begins, and she came to be more properly spoken of
as a passage-hawk (or true _pélérin_). This designation carried her
down to the end of the year, when she assumed, according to the French
falconers, the title of _antennaire_; that is to say, a hawk whose
feathers, or whose whole self, belong to last year (_antan_). Many
of the English falconers, however, gave her no new title until at or
near the arrival of Lent, when they called her a Lantiner, Lentener,
or Lent-hawk, for as long as Lent lasted, that is to say, till near
moulting-time. The great similarity of the two names Lantiner and
Antennaire, given as they were to the same hawk at the same time of her
life in the two countries, suggests a strong doubt whether the former
was not a mere corruption of the latter. During the whole of this time
the unmoulted peregrine was known, from the colour of her plumage, as a
red hawk; and this term is still constantly employed. Many writers also
called her during the same period merely a soar-hawk, neglecting the
finer distinctions. It seems also that for a hawk which had been taken
in August or thereabouts, and kept in captivity, it was quite correct
to continue the name soar until her first moult was over. Passage-hawks
and lantiners were those only which had been caught in late autumn or
late winter; and these words could never be used for such as had been
caught before. As for the terms "gentle" and "slight," they seem most
properly to belong to peregrines which had been caught after they left
the nest, but before they began to migrate.
In spring or early summer the young peregrine naturally begins to
moult; and as soon as this tedious operation is concluded she becomes,
if wild, a "haggard," and if tame, an "intermewed" hawk. In any case
she is described as "blue," and not "red." There is some doubt as
to the meaning of the term haggard, many authorities, including the
lexicographers, deriving it from the Saxon _hag_, meaning hedge. A
more rational explanation seems to be that which traces it to the
Hebrew word _agar_ or _hagar_, meaning wild, as it is used in the Old
Testament. Wildness, indeed, is always regarded by Shakespeare and
other writers as the characteristic of the adult wild hawk, and not any
liking for hedges, to which no peregrine is very partial.
The language, or jargon, of falconry appropriated to the falcon, and,
by analogy, to other hawks, especially of the long-winged species,
special terms for various parts of her body and various movements and
conditions; much in the same way as several of the Oriental languages
describe the actions of royalty by special names. Thus her wings are
sails: the long feathers of them are flight feathers; and of these the
outer are principals; and next to them are the flags. Her tail is her
train; and the two central feathers of it are deck feathers. Her lower
leg is an arm, and her foot a hand, with petty singles instead of toes,
and talons instead of vulgar claws. Her nostrils are nares; her breast
feathers are mails; her lower intestine is her pannel; and her crop her
gorge.
A host of the commonest actions are dignified by more or less quaint
appellations. When a hawk sleeps she "jowks"; when she sips water she
"bowses." When she seizes her quarry in the air she "binds" to it; and
when her companion in the flight comes up and also takes hold, she or
he is said to "join." When she strips the feathers of the "pelt," or
dead body, of the quarry, she "deplumes"; and as she passes the food
from her crop downwards she "puts over." To "endue" is to digest;
to "feak" is to wipe her beak after eating; to "rouse" is to shake
herself; to "mantle" is to stretch out the leg in a sideways and
backward direction, and afterwards stretch the wing over it; to "mute"
is to evacuate; and to "cast" is to throw up the refuse feathers,
bones, and other indigestible matter which remains in her crop after a
meal has been digested. When a hawk is pushed or forcibly held down by
the hands she is said to be "cast" (French, _abattue_); and when she is
bound up in a wrapping, so as not to be able to move, she is "mailed."
When a silk thread is passed by means of a needle through the upper
eyelids and made fast under the chin she is said to be "seeled," and
the process of undoing these fastenings is called "unseeling." When she
stretches her wings upwards over her head she "warbles." When quarry is
put up for her, she is "served" with it. When she drives a quarry to
take refuge in covert she is said to "put in"; and when she rises in
the air over the place where the quarry has gone into hiding she "makes
her point." If instead of doing this she goes and takes perch on a tree
or other place of vantage, she "blocks." When her digestive organs are
brought into good condition she is said to be "enseamed."
Most of these words can be used indifferently for both long-winged and
short-winged hawks; but others are inappropriate for the latter. Thus
it is wrong to call the claws of a short-winged hawk talons; and a
goshawk or sparrow-hawk does not "mute," but "slice."
Black Shaheen (_Falco peregrinator_, or _Falco atriceps_)
This hawk is decidedly smaller than the true peregrine, the female
hardly exceeding a big tiercel in length or weight. It is distinguished
by the darker colour of its head, and especially of the sides and
moustachial streak, which may be called black. The under parts of the
body have a more or less pronounced rufous tinge; and the ends of the
wings, when closed, approach more nearly to the end of the tail.
The black shaheen is docile, and more easily reclaimed than the
peregrine; and is a great favourite with some of the Indian falconers,
although the many distinguished Europeans who have flown hawks in
that country express themselves less satisfied, and rather doubt the
courage of peregrinator in the field. The quarry is the same as that
of the peregrine, but it is only the strongest individuals which can
be expected to cope with such heavy birds as the latter can tackle. Of
the rapidity of its flight there can be no doubt; but Colonel Delmé
Radcliffe says that it is inferior to the peregrine in "ringing"
flights.
Red-naped Shaheen (_Falco babylonicus_)
Female--Length, about 17-1/4 inches; wing, 13; tail, 7-1/4.
Male--Length, 15-1/2 inches; wing, about 11-3/4; tail, 6-1/4.
This is another very near relation of the peregrine, also a favourite
with the Indian falconers, both native and European. It is slightly
smaller than the black shaheen, from which, as well as from _F.
peregrinus_, it is readily distinguished by the reddish chestnut colour
of the back of the head. The foot is smaller proportionately than
that of the peregrine, and shaped rather more like that of the desert
falcons. It is easily caught and reclaimed, and is said to develop a
sort of affection for its trainer. When trained it is a most useful
servant, and will fly with readiness and success at almost any of the
innumerable Indian birds which are anywhere nearly of its own size.
It excels particularly in the flight at wild ducks; and a specimen
which was brought to England not many years ago proved a first-rate
game-hawk. Latham asserts that it can be flown successfully at wild
geese, but should be followed closely by well-mounted men, who should
dismount quickly and secure the quarry, which may otherwise severely
damage the hawk with its long and strong wings. He appears to have
known a tiercel which flew rooks, and seldom missed as much as one
in ten flights. It is a better moulter than the peregrine, and can
sometimes be fully moulted by August.
Barbary Falcon (_Falco barbarus_)
Female--Length, about 13-1/2 inches; wing, 11-1/2; tail, 5-1/2.
Male--Length, about 12-3/4 inches; wing, 10-3/4; tail, 5.3.
This beautifully-shaped hawk is the smallest of those which have been
commonly called miniature peregrines; and the resemblance is hardly
so marked in either of the last-mentioned varieties. For the barbary
is even more powerfully armed and feathered than her bigger cousins,
having not only the wings conspicuously longer and more pointed than
_F. peregrinus_, but also distinctly larger feet and talons, and a
larger beak proportionately to her size. The colouring is the same
as that of the peregrine, except that the young birds are generally
lighter, especially about the head, which has a slightly ruddy tint;
and the feet are more usually yellow than grey-blue. In adults the
thighs are strongly marked with arrow-headed streaks. This hawk is
sometimes called the Tartaret. It is found in the southern portion of
the temperate zone, especially on the African and other shores of the
Mediterranean.
The falcons and strong tiercels will fly well at partridges, pigeons,
and doves. Quails, of course, are easily taken by them, as they are
exceedingly fast on the wing. If a cast of haggards could be trained
for peewit or snipe, and well entered, they would probably have as
good a chance as any hawk which could be selected for these difficult
flights.
Lesser Falcon (_Falco minor_)
This hawk very much resembles the last, but has longer legs, and a
slight rufous tinge on the plumage. It is found chiefly in South Africa.
* * * * *
The Punic Falcon (_F. punicus_), the Javanese Falcon (_F.
melanogenys_), and the Chilian Falcon (_F. cassini_), all more or
less resemble the peregrine, but with variations in the colour of the
plumage, and of smaller dimensions.
Saker (_Falco sacer_)
The measurements of this hawk, as of a great many others, are given in
the so-called scientific books, even of highest repute, with hopeless
inaccuracy. One of the authorities which is most often referred to
gives the length of the female saker as 18-1/2 inches, or the same as
the peregrine, whereas every naturalist ought to know that the saker is
a very much larger bird. On the other hand, the _Royal Natural History_
(1895), coming much nearer the truth, says that "the female falls but
little short of 25 inches, and the male measures more than 18-1/2." The
proportions of this hawk, excepting the feet, do not differ greatly
from those of the ger, although the colourings and general appearance
are completely dissimilar. The weak point, from the falconer's point of
view, is the smallness of the feet and shortness of the middle toe, as
well as the poor quality of the feathers, which have about them none of
the glossy smartness so noticeable in the ger and the peregrine.
Young birds have the crown and nape buffy white, lighter on the
forehead and over the eyebrows, and in other parts profusely streaked
with dark brown. The upper plumage is a rather dull dark brown, with
fulvous and rufous buff edgings. The tail, excepting the deck feathers,
is marked with irregular oval spots, which range themselves into a
sort of band. There is a distinct moustachial stripe. The under parts
are buff-coloured, liberally streaked with splashes of dark brown,
especially on the flanks; but the buff colour grows lighter on the
upper parts, and at the chin becomes nearly white. The cere, legs, and
feet are pale bluish or greenish grey.
In adults the head becomes much lighter, and sometimes dull white, but
with a more or less rufous brown tint and streaks of darker colour. The
upper parts are dull and rather pale brown, the feathers margined, and
in some parts barred, with light fulvous buff. The flight feathers are
faintly barred with a lighter brown, and all the tail feathers barred
with light buff. The sides of the face, chin, throat, and breast are
nearly white, the latter being spotted rather than streaked with brown,
but not transversely barred. The moustachial streak fades away. The
cere, feet, and legs assume a more or less pronounced yellow colour.
The saker is a tolerably common bird throughout almost the whole
of Central and Southern Asia, and is there very highly valued for
practical purposes. It was also largely imported into Western Europe in
the Middle Ages, and later it was used even in France and England for
the flight at kites. It is for this fine sport that it is now chiefly
prized in India. The list of quarry taken by this very serviceable hawk
is extremely large, and includes, besides the various kinds of tropical
kites, hubara, or bustard, herons, black ibis, ducks, and a whole host
of smaller birds. The flight at the short-eared owl is especially fine,
and the quarry often rings, and attains to a very great height before
the saker can get up. The female saker will take hares well, and also
ravine deer.
The tiercel of the saker is more properly called a sakret, sakeret,
or sackeret. This hawk is the largest of those called desert-hawks or
desert-falcons.
Lanner (_Falco lanarius_)
Female--Length, 18 inches; wing, 13.3; tail, 7.2. Male or
"Lanneret"--Length, 16-1/2 inches; wing, 12; tail, 6-1/2.
The dimensions of this desert-hawk do not differ widely from those of
the peregrine, but the feet are much smaller, and the tail longer.
The feathers are of an inferior quality, and the light colour of the
head prevents all risk of confusion. The wings are slightly longer and
heavier. Young birds have the whole back up to the nape of the neck
and down to the tail coverts dark brown, each feather tipped with a
lighter and more rufous brown. Wing and tail feathers darker brown,
narrowly tipped with rufous buff. The deck feathers are plain, but the
others are barred with lighter brown on the upper surface, and with
dull brownish grey bands of two shades underneath. The crown of the
head is light greyish buff, with narrow streaks of light brown. The
lower plumage is more or less dull white, very variously marked in
different individuals, but generally with longitudinal splashes of more
or less dark brown. The change to the adult plumage is not very marked.
The breast markings do not change to transverse bars; but some old
birds have the brown markings so arranged as to appear like irregular
bars. These markings, however, generally become very sparse, and often
disappear entirely on the throat and upper breast. The upper plumage
alters to a slatey brownish grey, most of the feathers being barred
with a darker brown, and still tipped with a rufous line. The cere and
feet change from a bluish to a yellowish grey.
The lanner is common in North Africa, as well as in Central and
Southern Asia, and is very frequently trained and flown in all these
parts of the world. It was also formerly very largely imported into
England, and used chiefly for game-hawking. It enjoys, nevertheless,
anything but a good character. The old English writers describe it
as "slothful and hard mettled," and of an "ungrateful disposition,"
while the French characterise it as _vilain_ and _rebelle_. The Indian
and Afghan falconers get it, as well as the saker, into condition by
frequent physicking; and the list of drugs formerly used for it in
England is of portentous length. In modern times the dosing of this as
well as other hawks is imperfectly understood by European falconers;
and the lanner is consequently in most cases a disappointing bird. When
thrown off, she flies in a heavy style, and only after considerable
delay will begin to mount. Very often, too, she will not mount at all,
but go to perch on a tree, or even on the ground. She is apt to rake
away and check at pigeons, plovers, and what not, and to be dull and
obstinately slow at coming to the lure. To ensure obedience she must
be fed a good deal upon washed meat, and that in moderate quantities,
her appetite, like that of all the desert-falcons, being apt to grow
slack on the least overfeeding. The lanner is very partial to mice, and
in the wild state appears to devour lizards and other reptiles. She is
not, therefore, at all particular as to diet, and may be regaled with
coarser food than the nobler falcons.
Once properly conditioned, however, and "on her day," the lanner--or
for that matter the lanneret, as the male is called--is a useful and
deadly hawk. Both sexes will kill partridges freely, not waiting on
so often when the quarry has put in as taking perch on a neighbouring
tree, and waiting, like a sparrow-hawk, to start from there. The female
has also been known to take wild-duck well, and will wait on, when she
likes, at a stupendous height. For magpies the lanner would hardly be
quick enough. Pheasants can usually be taken by the females at the
first stoop. It is said that the Arabs fly the lanner at small gazelles
and a kind of bustard, which it stoops at whenever it takes wing, and
without actually striking it, frightens it on to its legs, so that it
can be run down with hounds. This bird has the faculty of ejecting a
slimy matter from its mouth and vent, which, if it reached the hawk,
would incapacitate her from flying. Ringing flights are flown at a bird
called the chakhah, resembling a golden plover; and the lanners which
excel at this fetch a price equivalent to £50 or £60. The Arabs also
fly the lanner at sand-grouse and francolin.
D'Arcussia declares that the sakers and lanners do better in stormy
weather and high winds than the peregrine. Neither of them bear the
heat well in temperate climates.
* * * * *
The South African Lanner (_F. biarmicus_) and the Tunisian Lanner, or
Alphanet, are local species, having a more strongly rufous coloration
than _F. lanarius_.
Lugger (_Falco jugger_)
Female--Length, 17 inches; wing, 13.6; tail, 8. Male--Length, 15
inches; wing, 12; tail, 7.
An Indian hawk, rarely found out of the peninsula. It is much used by
the natives for a variety of quarry, and does a lot of useful work.
Eleonora Falcon (_Falco eleonoræ_)
Female--Length, about 15-1/2 inches; wing, 13.3; tail, 7.5.
Male--Length, about 13-1/2 inches; wing, 11.8; tail, 6.5.
This is a hawk of the hobby type, much darker on the under parts, and
with a good deal of black and rufous on the under surface of the wings.
The feet are at first pale yellow, developing later into orange. The
wings are long, but do not project, like the hobby's, beyond the tail.
This hawk is common on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It was
observed and reported upon by Brooke in Sardinia, and Kruper in Greece,
which latter observes that it is "a noble falcon, and was in early ages
used for falconry." I have not discovered the chapter or verse in which
this use is mentioned; but the hawk is obviously quite big enough to be
flown at partridges, if willing to go. Both the above-named naturalists
maintain that its food consists principally of birds, and Dr. Kruper
declares that he found in its nests the remains of six different kinds
of bird, including quail and hoopoe. A specimen was trained by Lord
Lilford in 1868, who found it very obedient to the lure, but of no use
in the field.
Hobby (_Falco sabbuteo_)
Female--Length, 13 to 13-1/2 inches; wing, 11-1/4; tail, 6-1/4.
Male--Length, 11 to 12 inches; wing, about 10-1/2; tail, 5-1/2.
This very beautiful and graceful little hawk may at once be identified
by the exceeding length of its wings, which, when closed, extend a
full half-inch beyond the end of the tail. It is conspicuous also by
its very marked colouring, which is in young birds almost black on the
upper parts, each feather, however, being tipped with fulvous brown.
The lower plumage is creamy white, streaked profusely with dark brown
splashes, and tinted on the throat and sides of the head with a warm
buff. There is a broad black patch below the eye, and a black eyebrow,
with a small streak of buff above it. The moustache is broad and
strongly marked. The cere is greenish grey; and the feet, originally
of the same hue, develop gradually into light yellow, and later into
gamboge and bright orange. The deck feathers are plain, but all the
others are barred both above and below by about ten cross-bands of
lighter brown.
In adults the upper plumage changes to a uniform dark slate colour,
nearly black towards the head. The flanks and thighs, especially in
the male, assume a more and more distinct rufous colour. The feet are
proportionately small, and the legs decidedly weak.
There are strong evidences that the hobby, when commonly bred in
Western Europe, was used with success for taking larks, not only
by the process of "daring" referred to later on in the chapter on
lark-hawking, but in actual flight, and that the female was used for
taking partridges in the same way. The failure of modern falconers
to make any practical use of this elegant and prepossessing hawk, is
noticed in detail in the same chapter. Owing to its natural tameness,
the hobby is especially liable to fall a victim to persecution
by gamekeepers and naturalists, and has as a result been nearly
exterminated in England.
A wild hobby has been seen by credible witnesses to take a swift on the
wing in Bulgaria. A trained female has been known in England to take
house-pigeons.
Merlin (_Falco æsalon_)
Female--Length, 11-1/2 to 12 inches; wing, 8-1/2 to 9; tail, 5-1/4 to
5-3/4; weight, about 8 oz. Male--Length, 10-1/2 to 11 inches; wing, 8
to 8-1/4; tail, 4-3/4 to 5; weight, 6-1/4 to 6-3/4 oz.
Females and young males have the whole upper plumage a rich chocolate
brown, with reflections of purplish grey, each feather on the back and
upper wing coverts tipped with a somewhat lighter brown, and crossed
by a buff bar, which is usually not to be seen except when the plumage
is disarranged or ruffled. Each feather also has a black shaft, which
is conspicuous in strong lights on a close view. The primaries and all
the principal feathers of the wing are very dark brown on the upper
surface, barred with several patches of light brown or buff. The under
surface of the wing is very light silvery grey, with numerous bars and
spots of brownish grey, each feather having a dark grey shaft, which
is white underneath. The tail feathers on the upper surface are of a
slightly lighter brown than the back, and light grey underneath, barred
with more or less oblique bands, which are buff-coloured above, and
light grey-brown underneath, and are all tipped with white. The under
plumage of the body is creamy white, more or less tinged with light
buff, especially on the sides of the head and throat. It is liberally
streaked with longitudinal splashes of dark brown, which on the upper
throat are very small, but on the lower flanks are broad and large.
There is a facial patch and a moustache of dark brown, but these are
not so strongly marked as in the peregrine and hobby. The beak is
light blue, darkening to indigo, and at the tip to black. The cere and
eyelids, light bluish grey. The legs and feet vary from light greenish
or blueish grey to light yellow. The toes are long, thin, and flexible.
Adult females do not change, except that they lose much or all of the
purplish sheen of nestlings, and that the edging of the feathers is
less marked. Adult males undergo a very striking transformation. The
whole upper plumage changes from brown to a rich bluish slate colour,
deepening in the long wing feathers to greyish black. Instead of the
light bars on the tail, there is a single broad grey-black band nearly
at the extreme end. The breast at the same time assumes a warmer tint,
deepening from cream colour at the chin to a rich buff lower down, and
deep russet at the flanks. The cere, eyelids, legs, and feet assume a
deep golden or light orange colour. The wing and tail feathers have
a stronger and stiffer appearance than before the moult, and those
of the tail are generally somewhat shorter as well as stouter than
they were. Very old females occasionally, but not often, put on the
livery of the adult male; and this is the case sometimes also with old
female kestrels. In merlins of both sexes the third feather of the
wing is usually exactly equal in length to the second, and it is only
exceptionally that it is even fractionally shorter.
The name merlin is in orthodox phraseology reserved to the female
merlin only, the male being more properly spoken of as a jack. The
former, when exceptionally strong and courageous, may be flown with
some success at partridges, and will also take house-pigeons and
probably doves. They have been known to capture and kill wood-pigeons.
Both sexes may be flown at quails, and are more deadly at this business
than sparrow-hawks. In the wild state they kill blackbirds, thrushes,
starlings, and almost all kinds of small birds, and the trained birds
may be kept with more or less success to any one of these birds of
quarry. It has been thought that a good cast of merlins might take
snipe, and it is said that such a feat has been in former times
achieved. With tropical snipe in an overfed or moulting condition, it
is possible that this might still be done; but it is to be greatly
doubted whether any trained merlin or merlins could take fully-moulted
English snipe. The flight, however, for which merlins are usually
reserved, and for which they are renowned, is that at moulting
skylarks, and in this sport the jacks are very nearly as successful
as their sisters, as will be seen in the chapter on lark-hawking. The
merlin will follow her quarry when she can into covert; and when her
victim is larger than herself, kills it by strangulation, gripping it
tightly round the neck.
Indian Merlin (_Falco chicquera_)
This hawk, a little larger than the European merlin, is flown at much
the same quarry, but also at rollers and hoopoes, which latter afford a
fine ringing flight.
* * * * *
The African Merlin (_F. ruficollis_) has the markings on the breast
closer together.
Kestrel (_Falco tinnunculus_)
Female--Length, about 13 inches; wing, 9; tail, 7. Male--Length, about
12 inches; wing, 8-1/4; tail, 6-1/2.
Females and young males have the upper plumage reddish brown,
transversely barred on the shoulders, wing coverts, and tail with
black; the flight feathers, blackish brown; the under plumage, very
pale fawn colour, streaked on the breast, and splashed on the lower
part with brown. Adult males have the head, lower part of the back,
and upper surface of tail, light slatey grey. The tail with a broad
black band near the end, and tipped with white; and the head with dark
shaft-streaks; the shoulders, upper back, and upper wing coverts, pale
chestnut, with small black spots of a triangular shape. The wings, dark
horn colour, with lighter edging. The under plumage, pale fawn colour,
becoming more rufous at the lower part and on the thighs; streaked with
dark brown splashes on the breast, and spots on the abdomen. The cere,
feet, and legs are pale greyish yellow in the young, and brighter in
the adult.
This little hawk has, structurally, all the characteristics of what
the naturalists call a true falcon--more so, in fact, than the more
highly reputed merlin. Its shape, indeed, but for a want of size in the
feet and a somewhat exaggerated length of tail, is very symmetrical,
and indicative of fine flying powers. It is the least shy and most
familiar of all European hawks, and survives in tolerably large numbers
throughout England, where, together with the owls, it is a chief agent
in keeping down the inordinate increase of mice. Its powers of flight
are very considerable; and it remains on the wing generally for a
considerable part of the day, not soaring so much as beating the ground
at a height of two or three score feet, and hovering from time to time
with its eye on any small creature that may be moving about or hiding
in the grass below. But notwithstanding its fine proportions, its
muscular power is not great, and its extreme pace is not to be compared
with that of the merlin. If pursued by a fairly good peregrine in a
pretty open place, it frequently succumbs.
In the field a kestrel is of no practical use. It will indeed generally
take sparrows and other small birds thrown up from the hand when it is
waiting on. And instances have been known where it has flown and taken
a few wild birds. There is even a story extant of an eyess kestrel
which was flown at a young partridge and took it. But these facts,
if true, must have been entirely exceptional. As a rule the trained
kestrel refuses all wild quarry, and it has never been known to
persevere in killing any. I am not sure whether a fair attempt has been
made to fly her at rats, which would probably afford the best chance.
But kestrels can be reclaimed and taught to fly to the lure in exactly
the same way as the proudest peregrine or the most majestic ger. They
will wait on beautifully, and stoop very prettily at the lure. And
while at hack their movements are exceedingly lively and graceful. Thus
for a beginner the kestrel is, in my opinion, undoubtedly the most
suitable hawk upon which he can try his hand. In the breeding season
eyesses may be procured pretty easily, and at an insignificant cost;
and throughout the year many of both sexes are captured in the nets of
bird-catchers, who would part with them readily for a few shillings if
they were notified beforehand that any amateur would give a fair price
for the captives. In reclaiming and manning a kestrel, in learning
how to keep her feathers unbroken and clean, how to hood her, bathe
her, house her, and weather her, and how to diet her, the tyro can
very easily and cheaply acquire all that elementary knowledge of the
difficult art of falconry which it is advisable that he should possess
before he attempts to succeed in training and flying a valuable hawk.
Whereas if, without any preliminary experience, he begins, as so many
writers advise him, with an eyess merlin, he is almost certain to
meet with a more or less discouraging failure. Far better to observe
the old maxim, "_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili_." Let the young
falconer not attempt to run before he can walk fairly well. When he has
taught his kestrel to wait on and stoop to the lure, and has either by
preventive care or by successful imping got her in perfect plumage, let
him feed her up and "whistle her down the wind" to shift for herself,
and then consider himself qualified to make a more serious attempt with
a sparrow-hawk, merlin, or peregrine.
[Illustration: TRAINED KESTREL "THUNDERBOLT"
OWNED BY MR. R. GARDNER]
II. THE SHORT-WINGED HAWKS
Regarded from the falconer's point of view, the short-winged hawk
differs essentially from her more honourable cousin of the long wings
in the following particulars. She cannot be taught to "wait on" in the
air. Although she will on occasions stoop from above at her quarry,
she does not habitually capture it by a downward stroke or blow, but
by following it from behind and "trussing" or "binding" to it. She
manifests her readiness to fly by a condition of body which is called
by the quaint, and apparently Oriental, name of "yarak," in which she
shows evident signs of eagerness and excitement, and is obviously
on the _qui vive_--attentive to every sight and sound which she may
suppose to indicate the presence of quarry or the hope of a flight.
She kills her quarry, when taken, by crushing it in her strong foot
and piercing it with her long and sharp claws, or pounces. She follows
her quarry, when it is possible, into covert; and when this is not
possible she takes stand readily on some convenient resting-place, such
as the branch of a tree, the top of a wall, or on her trainer's fist.
As a general rule she does not need to be kept to any one particular
quarry, or flown at any particular time of day, but may be thrown off
at anything, whether fur or feather, which she thinks she can take, and
will do almost any amount of work at almost any hour.
It will thus be seen that though, from the purely artistic and sporting
standpoint, the long-winged hawk deserves the more honourable place
which has always been accorded to her in the most civilised countries,
yet, taking the more material and matter-of-fact view of the matter,
and regarded as a "pot-hunter," the short-winged is at least equal
to her in merit. There is, it is true, in the flight of the latter
little of the grandeur and dramatic excitement which so often attend
the efforts of the former. No silent pause while the pointer stands
and the hawk mounts steadily to her lofty pride of place above him.
No spiral climbing of quarry and hawk into the distant blue sky. No
lightning descent, which in a second or two brings down the hawk from
hundreds of yards high to within a few feet of her trainer's head. But
there is plenty of excitement of a different and not less healthy kind.
The wary stalking of a shy quarry while the well-trained hawk on the
fist trembles with eagerness for the chase. The rush and bustle of the
start; the quick burst of riding or running to keep the chase in view;
the hurry and scurry when the quarry has to be routed out from his
place of refuge; the tussle for mastery when he has once been seized;
and, last but not least, the abundance and variety of the bag which on
a successful day is carried home.
One very great advantage attached to the short-winged hawk is that she
can be flown in an enclosed country, or at least in places which are
only very moderately open. Woods and forests are of course tabooed;
and any land which is very undulating or very steep should be avoided.
But the grass land and arable land which is commonly found in some
four-fifths of the area of England, and especially that part of it
which is not cut up into too small fields, is available, as well as
the downs and commons, even though an occasional spinny or small
plantation intrudes itself into the campaigning ground. Another merit
of the short-winged hawk is that she is less likely to be lost. Trained
as she is, or should be, upon missing her quarry, to come back to
the falconer himself, and remain with him until her quarry is again
actually on the wing, or, in the case of ground-game, on its legs,
there is little temptation either to "rake away" or to "check." Again,
the length of the flights, counting each separate bout in the pursuit
as a flight, is very much less; so that the falconer--or ostringer,
to give him his correct name--has a far better chance of keeping in
sight when the quarry is either taken or put in. Finally, neither of
the species of short-winged hawks usually trained and flown is much
addicted to the vice of "carrying"; and thus the risk of losing a hawk
or wasting valuable time by reason of this vexatious habit is much less
to be feared. It should perhaps be added that constant exercise is less
necessary for a short-winged than for a long-winged hawk, as the former
may be left idle for considerable periods, and when brought into yarak
again seems to have lost little if any of her speed or her merits.
At the same time, the temper and disposition of the short-winged hawks
are undeniably worse at the first than those of the long-winged.
Both goshawks and sparrow-hawks, whether eyesses or wild caught, are
naturally suspicious and mistrustful of mankind. They are easily
alarmed, and very ready to take offence, and, once alienated or
frightened, can with difficulty be conciliated. Savage and vindictive
by nature and habit, they are subject to almost ungovernable fits of
rage and sulkiness, which can only be subdued and guarded against
by the exercise of much patience and good temper on the part of the
trainer. They are jealous and cruel, and cannot, as a rule, be flown in
company with other hawks, even of their own species and sex. Once lost
for any considerable time they resort to their wild habits, and are
difficult to recapture. Unless carefully dieted they are very subject
to apoplectic fits. Their long tails, although flexible and elastic
under moderate pressure, will not always stand a very severe strain,
and are likely, in a serious struggle either with any big quarry or
with an awkward trainer, to be broken. The short-winged hawks should
generally be belled on the tail. They are apt sometimes to crouch down
on their quarry when taken, in which case a bell on the leg is hardly
sounded. Besides this, if flown when snow is on the ground, the snow
will choke the bell and make it useless.
Taking the whole world over, the families of the goshawks and
sparrow-hawks, which practically merge into one another, are very
extensive, comprising more than thirty species, many of which could
without doubt be pressed into the service of man. Only three of these
have, however, commonly been trained.
Goshawk (_Astur palumbarius_)
Female--Length, 22 to 24 inches; wing, 12-1/2 to 13-1/2; tail, 10 to
12; tarsus, about 3.5. Male--Length, 19-1/2 to 21-1/2 inches; wing,
10-1/4 to 12-1/2; tail, 9 to 10; tarsus, about 3.
Females and young males have the upper plumage a dull liver brown,
broadly margined and barred with much lighter brown; the tail, barred
with five broad bands, dark brown. The under surface of the tail is
pale whitish grey, with five bands of dark brownish grey. The rest
of the under plumage is pale or rusty cream colour, tinted more or
less faintly with salmon pink, and streaked irregularly on the breast
and flanks with longitudinal patches or splashes of dark brown. The
cere and legs are greenish yellow. The eyes are very light, and clear
yellowish grey, and so bright that the Greeks gave to this hawk the
name of [Greek: asterias ierax], the star-eyed hawk. Adult males have
a decided grey tint on the upper and under plumage. At the first moult
both sexes change the longitudinal streaks on the breast, thighs, and
flanks into more or less irregular bars of dark greyish brown; and as
they grow older the bars usually become narrower and more regular. The
tail is now barred on both surfaces with four broad bands of dark brown
or grey. The cere, legs, and feet become yellow; and the eyes change to
a deeper yellow, and ultimately to deeper and darker orange.
Goshawks vary greatly in size and strength. Those which are imported
from Norway are often exceptionally big and strong, while the specimens
from Germany and Central Europe have a reputation for weakness.
Although this hawk formerly bred commonly in England, it is now
practically extinct; but some nests are still annually found in France.
The list of quarry at which the goshawk may be flown is very
large, including, for the British islands, hares, rabbits, stoats,
weasels, squirrels, and rats; herons and wild ducks--flown as they
rise--pheasants, partridges, landrails, water-hens, jays, and an
occasional magpie or wood-pigeon. In fact, any moderate-sized bird
which gets up close in front of a goshawk must bustle himself if he
intends to escape the first quick dash of this impetuous and greedy
pursuer.
In India and other tropical countries the female "goss" will fly,
with a good start, at crows, neophrons, minas, florikin, francolin,
jungle-fowl, and even such big birds as kites, geese, cranes, and
pea-fowl. Even in England she was formerly flown with success at
cranes, wild geese, and other large water-fowl; and the old books
contain elaborate directions as to stalking these birds "with grey
goshawk on hand." In some parts of Asia goshawks are said to have been
flown at ravine deer and bustard; but this would probably be with some
assistance from dogs.
The male goshawk, much smaller in size than his sisters, is less
valuable to the sportsman, but is usually accounted rather swifter on
the wing. The best specimens will catch a partridge in fair flight; and
most of them, with a tolerably good start, will overtake a pheasant. A
very strong male will sometimes catch and hold a full-grown rabbit, and
the others may be expected to kill half-grown rabbits and leverets, if
kept to such quarry. Landrails and water-hens make a more or less easy
flight. Jays and magpies may sometimes be taken, as well as blackbirds.
Rats, weasels, squirrels, and "such small deer" are, of course,
available. Occasional specimens of the male goshawk are extraordinarily
fast and strong. Colonel Delmé Radcliffe had one which actually killed
grouse in Scotland, and another which took storks and geese in India,
as well as partridges.
Sparrow-Hawk (_Accipiter nisus_)
Female--Length, 14 to 16 inches; wing, 8-1/2 to 9-1/2; tail, 7-1/2 to
7-3/4; tarsus, 2.4. Male--Length, 11-1/2 to 12-1/2 inches; wing, 7-1/2
to 8-1/4; tail, 6 to 6-1/2; tarsus, 2.1.
The sparrow-hawk is remarkable for its very long and slender legs
and middle toe, and its small head. Young females have the beak and
upper plumage sepia brown, each feather edged with rufous brown; the
nape varied with white or rufous white. The wing feathers are dark
brown, with five bars of still darker brown on the outer primaries.
The tail rather lighter brown, with five dark brown bars. The under
plumage is dull white, more or less tinged with rufous, spotted with
irregular patches, streaks, or bars of greyish brown. In the adult the
brown of the upper plumage assumes a slatey grey hue, and the edgings
of lighter colour vanish. The breast and under parts are barred with
transverse markings of mixed fulvous and brown, and develop a rusty
red colouring on the abdomen and inner thighs. The legs and feet become
more distinctly yellow or gold colour, and the eye deepens in colour
to light and ultimately to dark orange. Males in the immature plumage
differ from females only in having a somewhat more rufous hue on the
lighter part. But after the moult this rufous colouring becomes still
more conspicuous, and spreads to the flanks and under surface of the
wings, as well as to the upper throat. In both sexes the bars on the
breast and thighs become narrower and of a fainter grey as the birds
grow older; and the eyes deepen in colour.
Female sparrow-hawks--very much bigger and stronger than their
brothers--may be flown at any bird of the size of a partridge, or
smaller, which is not very swift or quick in shifting. In the wild
state they undoubtedly kill a certain number of wood-pigeons, taking
them at some disadvantage, as, for instance, when they pass under a
tree in which the hawk is at perch. Probably the wild sparrow-hawk
also picks up an occasional peewit, snipe, or woodcock. She is fond
of young pheasants, which she will pick up from the ground when
insufficiently guarded by the mother or foster-mother. Young chickens
sometimes undergo the same fate under similar circumstances. The uses
of the trained sparrow-hawk, both male and female, are described in the
chapter devoted to this hawk.
Besra Sparrow-Hawk (_Accipiter virgatus_)
This species, considerably smaller than _A. nisus_, is very common in
the tropics, both in the wild and in the trained state, and is thought
by many to be quite equal, if not superior, to it in courage and
ability.
Other sparrow-hawks which may be trained include the large species
called the Levant sparrow-hawk (_A. brevipes_), _A. minullus_ and _A.
tinus_, from South America, _A. cirrocephalus_, from Australia, _A.
badius_, and the miniature _A. polyzonoides_.
III. THE EAGLES
In Western Europe no great use seems to have been made by the old
falconers of any kind of eagle. D'Arcussia in the early editions of his
book makes no reference to them as objects of the trainer's care, and
some of the early English authors expressly speak of them as useless
to the falconer by reason of their great weight, making it impossible,
as they believed, to carry them on the fist, and also their powers of
fasting, which, they supposed, precluded all chance of reducing them to
proper obedience. In the East, however, they have from time immemorial
been trained with success, and flown at a great variety of quarry
suitable to their size and strength. For the far greater part of the
knowledge which we now have about flights with eagles, we are indebted
to Mr. J. E. Harting, who obtained much valuable information on this
subject from the late Mr. Constantine Haller, an enthusiastic falconer,
and president of a Russian falconry club which had its headquarters at
St. Petersburg in 1884-85. Notwithstanding the efforts of these two
very competent authorities, it is still exceedingly difficult to say
with any certainty what sorts of eagles are now employed by the Kirghis
and Turcomans and other Asiatic peoples, and what other sorts are
regarded as unserviceable. As to the golden eagle and Bonelli's eagle
there is no doubt; but the evidence as to the others below-mentioned
cannot be said to be at all conclusive.
The speed of the eagles in ordinary flying is inferior to that of the
hawks, though superior to that of any quadruped at his best pace.
Their usual mode of capturing their prey when in the wild state, is
by soaring and scanning the ground below, and, when they see a good
chance, dropping with a powerful stoop on to the back or head of the
victim. In training they cannot be made to wait on, and must therefore
be flown from the fist, so that winged game of all kinds is usually
able to show them, if not "a clean pair of heels," at least a clean set
of tail feathers. Consequently their quarry consists almost entirely
of four-legged creatures. Large birds of various descriptions might
be flown at when they are on the ground, and might be taken before
they had time to get fairly on the wing; but such masquerades of real
hawking can hardly be called flights.
The golden eagle, and most other eagles, are naturally more or less
ill-tempered, and require the exercise of considerable patience on the
part of the man who undertakes to reclaim them; but the method employed
differs in no material respect from that applied to the short-winged
hawk. Only, when a goshawk or sparrow-hawk is once properly reclaimed
and manned, she generally says good-bye to her bad temper. The eagle
is said to be sometimes apt, even when fully trained, to become so
enraged, either at missing her quarry or by some other _contretemps_,
that she will attack the men of the party, and perhaps have a flight at
a native just by way of a relief to her outraged feelings.
Eagles are carried to and in the field on a crutch, which is formed
of an upright pole with a cross-bar at the top, the lower end of the
apparatus being fitted into the saddle, and the staff of it attached by
a strap to the rider's girdle. The lure, to which they are called when
they do not come back to the crutch, consists of the stuffed skin of an
animal made to resemble the quarry at which they are meant to fly.
* * * * *
The following are the eagles best fitted for training:--
Golden Eagle (_Aquila chrysaetus_)
Female--Length, about 35 inches; wing, about 27-1/2; tail, about 14;
tarsus, 3.8. Male--Length, about 32 inches; wing, 24-1/2; tail, 13;
tarsus, 3.7.
The plumage is generally of a ruddy brown or fawn, inclining in parts
to dark brown, and in others to dull brownish gold. Adult females
become very dark, and males also assume a more dusky hue as they grow
older.
Of the fact that the golden eagle is now and has been for centuries
commonly trained and flown in Central Asia there is no manner of doubt.
Many excellent authorities maintain that it is the species used by the
Kirghis and other tribes subject or tributary to Russia under the name
of Kholsan. This was also the opinion of M. Paul Gervais, who became
the owner of a veritable Kholsan, imported into France by M. Maichin,
who purchased it from the Kirghis for £40 and a gun. This trained
eagle, which was a female, would take foxes well, and after binding to
them was accustomed to grip them by the fore part of the mask, thus
obviating the chance of a dangerous bite. In Central Asia the Kholsan
is flown at bustard, hare, fox, and antelope; and the females will
tackle such heavy quarry as wild goat, wolf, and even wild boar.
Berkute (_Aquila nobilis_)
About the identity of this species there is even more doubt than about
the Kholsan. Mr. Harting inclines to the view that it is no more than a
golden eagle in a different phase of its plumage. Others suppose that
it is the imperial eagle, and others again regard it as Bonelli's
eagle. It appears that in the Russian provinces of Asia it is still
more commonly used than the Kholsan, and at much the same quarry, which
would suggest the conclusion that it is not at any rate a larger bird
than _A. Bonellii_.
White-Crowned Eagle (_Haliætus leucoryphus_)
A specimen was owned by a Russian falconer, who found it worth while to
keep it over two moults, and must have taken a favourable view of its
merits.
Spotted Eagle (_Aquila clanga_ or _nævia_)
This large eagle is trained by the Kirghis, under the name of Kara
Gush, _i.e._ black eagle.
Imperial Eagle (_Aquila imperialis_)
This is a smaller eagle than _A. chrysaetus_, the female measuring
about 32 inches and the male about 31. It appears to be susceptible of
training, and is thought by many to be included in the list of eagles
commonly used in Turkestan. It is found throughout the greater part of
Asia, and occasionally in South-Eastern Europe.
Steppe Eagle (_Aquila nipalensis_)
This bird is described by some naturalists as a hawk-eagle. It is of a
taking and sportsmanlike appearance, the eyes of old specimens being
of a fiery yellow, though in young birds they are dull grey. Colonel
D. Radcliffe obtained several specimens in India, both eyess and wild
caught. He says that in the wild state it takes pine martens and also
the musk deer.
Bonelli's Eagle (_Aquila Bonellii_)
Female--Length, 26-1/2 inches; wing, 18-1/4; tail, 11-1/2; tarsus, 4.
Male--Length, 24-1/2 inches; wing, 17-1/2; tail, 11-1/4; tarsus, 3.9.
This small and rather long-legged eagle is probably the easiest to
train, and the best for purposes of falconry in Europe, as it is of
a more handy size than the bigger species, and strong enough for
all practical purposes. A trained specimen was kept and flown by M.
Barachin in France at hares and rabbits. It is described by Canon
Tristram as a more dainty feeder than most of the eagles; and Mr. Hume
says that in the wild state it kills many water-fowl. The tail is
barred. The weight of the male hardly exceeds 4 lbs.
In concluding the list it must be observed that several birds which
might have been comprised in it are omitted. The Chinese and Japanese
falconers of bygone times undoubtedly trained hawks which are figured
in their books, but cannot now be identified. Falconry is extinct
in Japan, and nearly so in China. The hawks themselves, which were
once highly honoured in their country, will probably before long be
exterminated by the ever-increasing horde of skin-collectors.
Some readers may be surprised at the exclusion from this list of some
such birds as vultures, buzzards, and even some owls. These I have
designedly omitted. I find in a work called the _Natural History
Picture-Book_ a statement by Mr. Wood, that the kite (_Milvus regalis_)
"has even been trained for purposes of falconry, and found to perform
its task to the satisfaction of its owner." Either the owner must have
been very easily pleased, or the kite must have changed very greatly
in disposition and habits within the last few centuries! With shrikes
the case is different, for it appears that they were actually trained
to fly at small birds. D'Arcussia tells us plainly that amongst the
numerous hawking establishments kept up by Louis XIII. was one of
shrikes, and relates a very quaint story of one of these little birds
owned by the king, which would fly up to a heron on the wing and
whisper in his ear!
Several of the falconets might certainly be utilised in the field, and
amongst them especially Feilden's falcon, which is very common, very
bold, and very tame. Indeed, some of the Malays are said to train these
little hawks. Davison says that he has seen the black-legged falconet
(_Hierax fringillarius_) stoop at a rock-thrush, and killed one on a
partly-plucked swallow. Other likely varieties are the white-legged and
red-legged falconets (_H. melanoleucus_ and _H. coerulescens_).
There can be little doubt that such birds as fly-catchers could be
trained and flown at butterflies; and possibly, when the naturalists
and Cockney sportsmen and egg-collectors have succeeded by their united
efforts in exterminating all hawks, our descendants may resort to this
form of sport as their best substitute for falconry as we now know it.
CHAPTER III
Furniture and Fittings
Before the intending falconer takes any preliminary steps even towards
becoming the owner of a hawk, he must make himself thoroughly familiar
with the necessary appliances which he will have to use, and first of
all with the hawk's furniture, or articles of attire and daily use.
The "jess" (or jesse) by which the hawk's feet are secured is a strip
of leather fastened round the leg, just above the foot. It is, of
course, of a different length, width, and stoutness, according to the
size of the wearer. For a peregrine or ger the same stuff may be used
as for strong riding or driving gloves; and the softer and more pliable
it can be, consistently with strength, the better. For a gerfalcon 8
in. is not too long. For a peregrine tiercel 6-1/2 in. is long enough,
and for hawks of intermediate size the length may vary according to
their proportions. In the case of the smaller hawks, from the female
sparrow-hawk to the tiny jack-merlin, the length for ordinary purposes
should be from 4-1/2 in. to 6-1/2 in. But when a jack-merlin is flying
ringing larks late in the season, or indeed at any time, and it is
important that he should carry the very smallest possible amount of
extra luggage, his jesses may be made out of a thin kid glove, well
stretched and greased, and need not be more than 3-1/2 in. long, by
1/4 in. wide, bulging out to 1/3 in. at the place where they encircle
the leg, and at the other end, where they are hooked to the swivel. In
all cases the jess is attached in the same way. After it has been well
stretched and greased, a short slit is made near the broader end of the
leather (see Fig. 1), and another a little farther down. The distance
between the two slits should be about the same as the circumference of
the hawk's leg--not greater, nor much less. This part of the leather
between the two slits is applied to the hawk's leg, and the shorter
end, being brought round the leg, is pushed through the second slit as
far as it will go. Then the longer end is in its turn passed through
the first slit and pulled tight. Some falconers pass the long end of
the jess through both slits before pulling it tight; but the reason for
this extra precaution has never been made plain. After the long end has
been pulled through--or before, if preferred--a hole is punched in the
leather at a short distance from the tip, and another and larger slit
is made for the purpose of attaching the jess to the swivel. But if the
hawk is destined, immediately after the jesses have been put on, to be
turned out to hack, this end slit is not required, and should never
be made, as it is possible that it might loop itself round some thorn
or other peg-like object, and hang up the hawk, causing her death or
some irreparable injury. Whenever a jess is released from the swivel,
it is a good plan, when there is time, to twirl up the end, rolling it
between the finger and thumb, so that the slit does not form a loop.
It is then less likely, in case of the hawk being lost, to lead to a
misfortune of the kind referred to.
[Illustration: HAWK'S FURNITURE, I.
1. JESS 2. BELL 3. HAWK'S FOOT WITH BELL AND JESS ATTACHED 4. BELL FOR
TAIL OF SHORT-WINGED HAWK 5. BEWIT 6. RING SWIVEL 7. SPRING SWIVEL
8. LEASH, SWIVEL AND JESSES 9. FALCONER'S KNOT 10. ATTACHMENT OF LEASH
TO POLE, PERCH OR CADGE]
Trained hawks always wear jesses. As soon as one pair is worn, and
shows signs of weakness, another pair should be put on; and after
they are attached, the old ones may be cut off with a sharp knife or
scissors and thrown away. Valuable hawks have been lost by the owner's
neglect to renew the jesses. Of course it usually happens that one of
a pair wears out before the other, and the breaking of the weakest
gives warning before the other has given way. But when one jess has
become so dilapidated as to be on the point of breaking, his fellow
will not be in a much better case, and a jerk caused by suddenly bating
at the block, especially when sitting there after a bath, may liberate
the hawk when you feel least prepared for such a mishap. The old
falconers seem to have almost always attached the ends of the jesses
to "varvels," which were small rings of silver, or other metal, upon
which often the name and address of the owner were engraved. Possibly
the jesses so used were very short, so that the risk of "hooking up"
did not arise. But the practice has long been abandoned by European
falconers.
Bells for trained hawks are of the greatest possible use. They betray
the whereabouts of the wearer, and save an infinity of time and trouble
when she has killed out of sight; and besides this, they proclaim to
every stranger who sees a lost hawk on the wing that she is private
property, and not wild. They are, practically, no impediment to the
hawk's flight, except in the case of the very smallest species; and
their sound probably augments the terror inspired in the quarry by a
stoop that has only just missed its mark. Bells have been used in all
countries from time immemorial. The best are now made in India; but
for the larger hawks, those supplied by Mr. Möllen, at Valkenswaard,
in Holland, are good enough, and very cheap. The European bells are
spherical, with a plain flat shank (Fig. 2), and those of Indian
manufacture are of the shape shown in the illustration (Fig. 3).
Anciently, silver was much used for bells for the more valuable hawks,
but the metal now used is chiefly brass. A good bell should be capable
of being heard distinctly on a still day more than a quarter of a mile,
even if lightly moved. The bell is attached to the hawk's leg by a
"bewit," which is fastened on in the same way as the jess. The bewit
is a small strip of leather shaped as in Fig. 5. It is pulled through
the shank of the bell until the latter is at the place indicated by
the dotted line near the middle. The shank is applied to the hawk's
leg above the jess, and the end (A) is passed round the leg and pushed
through the slit (B). Then the thicker end is pushed through the slit
at the thin end, and pulled till the ears or jags at the side have
come through the opening. These then act as barbs to prevent the end
slipping back, and the thin part of it can be cut off. Hack bells are
used not only to give notice where the hawk is, but also to serve as
a weight to handicap her when, at the end of her time of liberty, she
begins to chase chance quarry. They are therefore much bigger, in
proportion to the size of the wearer, than the bells used in the field.
A falcon's or tiercel's bell will not be too big for a merlin or jack.
Sometimes hawks' bells are even loaded with lead. A merlin which is
flying ringing larks does not wear bells, for it is impossible to get
any which are sufficiently light, and at the same time loud enough to
be of any use.
Short-winged hawks should generally be belled on the tail, and for this
purpose the bewits should be of a different shape, as in Fig. 4. The
aperture on each side of the bewit should be made to encircle the shaft
of one of the "deck" feathers, that is, the central feathers of the
tail, near to its base; and the double ends (C, C) should be lapped or
tied together with waxed thread, so that the fastening cannot slip from
its place.
Of course when it is intended to put on new jesses or bewits, the
hawk must be "cast," or held. And some considerable attention is
required to cast a hawk properly. To seize an unhooded hawk, especially
short-winged, and forcibly thrust her down on her breast would
constitute, in her eyes, a deadly and perhaps unpardonable offence. To
meddle with her when she has a full crop would be a great mistake. A
time should be chosen when she has little or nothing in her crop. She
should be hooded and held on the fist, while on the "operating table"
is placed a cushion and the apparatus required, including tweezers and
a sharp penknife. Then a silk handkerchief, once folded, can be thrown
over the hawk's shoulders, and the falconer's assistant, standing
behind the hawk with his hands over her back, the thumbs close to her
back-bone, will, with a quick steady lowering of the palms, grasp her
firmly round the body, with the fingers enclosing the sides of her
wings and thighs. Lifting her off the fist, he must deposit her on
the cushion, holding her down steadily on her breast. A man should be
employed for this purpose who is not likely to be nervous or flurried.
The jesses are made fast to the swivel when the hawk is not intended to
fly; and swivels are of two kinds. The safest (and the most troublesome
to put on and take off) is the ring-swivel (Fig. 6), consisting of a
double ring in the shape of a figure 8, each end working freely on a
pivot which keeps the two rings close together. It is made of brass
or iron, and very good and cheap ones are to be had from Mr. Möllen,
of Valkenswaard, in North Brabant. To attach the ring-swivel to the
jesses, pass the end of one jess from right to left through one of the
rings, and, after it is through, pass both rings through the slit in
the jess, and pull tight. When the first jess is fast, pass the end
of the other jess through the same ring upon which the first jess is
fastened, but in the opposite direction, from left to right, and then
pass the two rings through the slit as before. The second jess will
pull up tight over the first, and both will be fixed firmly at the
outer end of the same ring.
To get the ring-swivel off, the extreme end of the jess which was last
put on must be pulled until that jess becomes slack enough for the two
rings to be passed through it, or, in other words, for the opening in
the leather to be pulled over the rings, and, this being done, it will
come away at once. After releasing one jess, take care to hold it tight
between the fingers of the left hand while freeing the other jess.
Otherwise, if the hawk is fidgety and jumps off, she may jerk the other
jess out of your hand, and go off bodily, leash and all, into the next
parish.
Spring-swivels (Fig. 7) are very handy contrivances for use in the
field, but not so safe for a hawk when sitting unhooded on the perch
or at the block. They are shaped like the swivel by which watches are
usually attached to a watch-chain, and must be so made as to turn
quite freely on the pivot. To attach them to the jesses, nothing more
is required than to press the side with the thumb-nail, making the
spring yield, and then hook the curved end through the slit in both
jesses, after which the spring is released, and the jesses remain
encircled by the metal. Only, if the spring is stiff or does not work
properly, there will be disasters. The unhooking process is of course
even more easily and quickly effected.
The leash can now be attached to the swivel. And leashes, again, may
be of two kinds. The orthodox leash for peregrines and big hawks is
a strip of tough leather, about half an inch wide, and a yard long,
provided with a stout button at one end, which is made in the following
way:--In cutting the leash, three inches or so at one end are cut
rather broader than the rest of the strip. This broad end is then
rolled up tightly by doubling it over and over upon itself. After the
broad part has been rolled up, a hole is punched right through the
roll, and the other end of the leash, which is tapered to a point, is
pushed through and pulled tight. A sort of square button will thus be
formed at the thick end of the leash (Fig. 8); and if the thin end of
it is passed through the outer ring of the swivel--that ring to which
the jesses are not attached--it will run right through until the ring
encounters the button, which is too big to get past. The whole length
of the leash is then available for the purpose of tying up the hawk to
her block, or to a peg in the ground.
There is a right and a wrong way about even so simple a matter as tying
up a hawk. Blocks and pegs ought always to be provided with a ring or
staple, round which to tie the leash; and it should be tied in what is
called a falconer's knot, which can easily be negotiated with one hand.
To begin with, pass the thin end of the leash through the ring. Then
make a loop in the part which has gone through the ring, and pass the
loop round that part of the leash which has not gone through the ring.
Pull tight, and the leash will assume an appearance resembling that
shown in Fig. 9. Next pass the end (A) through the loop (B), and again
pull tight. It will be impossible for any strain upon the leash at C
to undo the knot. And when it is desired to undo it, the end (A) can
easily be picked out with the fingers through the tightened loop (B),
and a simple pull upon A will then undo the whole fastening.
For attaching hawks to the screen-perch, a sort of double falconer's
knot is required for fastening the two ends of the leash round
the pole. But it is learnt with the greatest ease. Nothing more is
necessary than to take the two ends of the leash--the thick and the
thin--and pass one over and one under the pole. Then tie them together,
just as if you were tying a black necktie, except that you make only
one bow instead of two. Let this one bow, when the knot is pulled
tight, be about four inches long; and through the loop formed by it
pass the two ends of the leash, which will naturally be found on the
reverse side of the knot (Fig. 10). When the hawk is carried on the
fist, the ends of the jesses, the swivel, and button of the leash will
often lie in the palm of the left hand. The leash will hang down for
some inches, perhaps a foot, and then, forming a loop, be gathered up
to the little finger, round which the lower part, a few inches from the
thin end, is wound for the sake of extra security.
Smaller leashes in the same style, but made of less stout leather, can
very well be used for the smaller hawks, and usually are so. But when
these hawks are doing a great deal of flying, as they should, and doing
it twice a day, the trouble of constantly unfastening the ring-swivel
from the jesses and fastening it on again becomes very tiresome, and
even vexatious; and it is a common practice to use spring-swivels
permanently. The outer ring of these (unless they are made specially)
is too small to admit the passage of a flat leash; and it will be found
more convenient to use thongs shaped like a porpoise-hide boot-lace.
In fact a long leather boot-lace makes about as good a leash as can be
wished for. The function of the button is fulfilled by a simple knot
tied in the end of the lace. Or in order to save still more time, the
lace may be permanently attached to the spring-swivel in the manner
shown in the diagram (Fig. 25). By making the knot an inch or two away
from the ring of the swivel, instead of close up to it, enough length
of tether is left, when the leash is tied round the pole, to enable a
merlin or sparrow-hawk in short "racing jesses" to shift about a bit on
the perch.
The proper place for a hawk, when not out of doors, is the screen-perch
(Fig. 23). The bar on which the hawk stands may run from wall to wall
of the hawk-house, or, if this is not convenient, it may be supported
on arms or brackets reaching out from the wall to a distance of not
less than 30 in. for a big hawk, or 2 ft. for a little one. Where this
arrangement is also impossible the bar may be supported at each end on
a post or tressels so securely fastened or weighted that they cannot
be upset or moved out of place. Round the bar, which should be of
wood, is wrapped a padding of baize or other soft stuff, and over it
a covering of canvas stretched very tight. The canvas may be nailed
to the pole, or stitched together, on the under side. A screen, or
curtain, of canvas must be attached to the under side of the perch, and
hang down from it for more than two feet, to form a sort of ladder, by
which any hawk may climb up again as often as she bates off and hangs
by her leash and swivel. The ends of this screen may be kept down with
weights attached to it, or stretched by a sort of guy ropes from the
lower corners, so as to keep the whole flat and taut. In perches for
small hawks, the same canvas which is rolled round the pole is often
allowed to hang down and form the screen. In this case slits or holes
are made in the canvas just below the pole, through which the leashes
may be passed when fastening the hawks to the perch. A space of at
least 2 ft. should be left between each big hawk and that which stands
next her on the perch; and 18 in. between each of the small ones; and
there should be rather more space between the end hawk and the wall or
the bracket of the perch, whichever it is.
Underneath the perch must be spread a good thick layer of sand or
sawdust, extending in the case of peregrines and gers for a good yard
on each side of the perch, and about 18 in. in the case of the smaller
long-winged hawks, to catch the mutes. As for short-winged hawks, the
layer must be very much farther extended, and in the case of goshawks
should reach at least three yards from the perch. And if the perch is
near a wall, the wall itself must be protected by a shield of paper,
or other cheap material which can be changed every other day, for
these hawks "slice" to a very great distance almost horizontally. The
sand or sawdust must either be removed daily, or at least freed from
the mutes which have fallen into it. In or near it will also be found
the "castings," or pellets of refuse feathers and other indigestible
matter thrown up by the hawks. These castings should be looked for
every morning by the falconer, and each one should be examined before
it is thrown away, as it is by the appearance of them, as will be seen
later on, that the state of health of each hawk is to a large extent
ascertained. Both castings and mutes, with the sand or sawdust adhering
to them, should, when collected, be immediately removed from the
hawk-house. A dirty or ill-smelling room is not only a disgrace to the
falconer, but injurious to the inmates, which, though possessed of no
sense of smell, require the purest possible air to breathe.
[Illustration: HAWK'S FURNITURE, II.
BLOCKS AND PERCHES
11. PLAIN BLOCK FOR LONG-WINGED HAWK 12. BLOCK FOR SAKER, MERLIN, ETC.
13, 14. IMPROVED BLOCK FOR LARGE AND SMALL HAWK 15. SPIKE FOR BLOCK
16. RING PEG 17, 18. BLOCKS WITH CORK TOP 19. FIELD BLOCK 20, 21.
BOW-PERCHES 22. CRUTCH-PERCH 23. SCREEN-PERCH]
For out-door service, blocks are used for the long-winged hawks, and
bow-perches for the short-winged. Blocks are of various shapes, as
shown in the illustration. The simplest are made of mere chunks of
tree or sapling sawn off level (Fig. 11), and having a staple of iron
or brass driven into the top or at the side, to which to attach the
leash. They should be from 8 inches to a foot in height for a peregrine
or ger, and for all other hawks of such a height that when the hawk
is standing on them her tail may just clear the tops of the blades of
grass. A high block is not good; for then the leash, if it is not to
catch in the shoulder, must be a long one, and when the hawk bates she
will be brought up with a too sudden jerk as the leash tightens. For
the smaller falcons--hobbies, merlins, and kestrels--as well as for
sakers and lanners, the block should always be larger at the top than
at the bottom, so that it may not be fouled on the sides with the mutes
(see Figs. 12, 14). It is a very good plan to have a groove made round
the body of the block, and to have a metal ring fitted round it, so
that it will run freely in the groove. This hoop of metal may be looped
out into a smaller ring on one side, to which the leash may be tied
(see Figs. 13, 14). As the hawk jumps off to one side or the other the
ring will run round; and thus all risk is avoided of the leash getting
hitched up or wound round the block. A spike (Fig. 15) is firmly fixed
into the middle of the base of the block to hold it fast in the ground.
Of course a block which is larger at the base than on the top may be
used without a spike, and without any ring or staple in it, if the
leash is fastened to a ring-peg (Fig. 16) in the ground. But even if
this peg is driven in on the windward side of the block, that is, on
the side towards which the hawk is pretty sure to bate off, the risk
of entanglement is not wholly avoided; and a hawk so attached should
not be left alone for long. The top of the block should be covered with
cork (Fig. 17), or it may be padded and covered with leather. But in
the latter case it must not be left out in the rain. Wood is too hard
for hawks to stand on for any length of time, and is apt to give them
corns or sore feet. No hawk should be allowed to stand on a wet block.
A simple and not a bad plan for making merlins' blocks, is to saw off
a chunk from a pole or tree branch, about 2-1/2 in. in diameter and 5
or 6 in. long. Into one end insert a spike, and on to the other nail
a 4-in. or 5-in. bung (Fig. 18). A 4-in. metal curtain-ring, measured
from outside to outside, can be placed on the ground and the spike
driven into the earth in the middle of the ring, which will run freely
round the block when the leash is attached to it. Care must always be
taken to drive the block well home to the ground, or the leash may
get jammed under its lower edge, and cause a dire mishap. Fig. 19 is
a little field block which I use for merlins. It can be carried in a
side-pocket when out on the open downs. After one of these little hawks
has done her day's flying, or before her turn comes, instead of putting
her, hooded, on the pole cadge, her leash is made fast to the looped
creance, which comes from a ring in the top of the block. The spike is
driven into the ground in a sheltered spot, and the hawk is deposited
on the top of the pigmy post, where she will sit, if not exactly "like
patience on a monument," at least more comfortably than if merely
pegged out on the prickly grass or still more uninviting stubble.
Bow-perches for goshawks and sparrow-hawks may be made by simply
bending a length of yew or other tough wood into the shape of an arch,
and sticking the two sharpened ends into the ground (Fig. 20). A more
elaborate apparatus made of iron, with three spikes and a padded top,
is shown in Fig. 21. In any case it is proper to pad the uppermost part
of the arch. The ring for the leash runs loosely on the outer frame of
the perch. The crutch-like perch shown in Fig. 22 is simple, and has
its merits. Probably for an eagle it is the best resting-place that
could be provided. When fixing up bow-perches or crutch-perches care
should be taken that they are placed broadside on to the wind, so that
the hawk as she takes perch on them may directly face the wind. It is
perhaps needless to say that for an eagle the spike should be very
long, and hammered deep into the ground.
The hood, or to speak more exactly, the hood proper, is an article of
attire with which every educated person is vaguely familiar. The exact
shape is shown in Fig. 24. It is made of stiffish leather, fashioned
on a wooden block made of the size and shape of the hawk for which
it is intended, and stitched together. Some amateurs have arrived at
a certain proficiency in making their own hoods. Captain Salvin, for
instance, could manufacture very good ones. But such excellent hoods
can be obtained from Mr. Möllen, for all sorts of hawks, at so small a
price, that it is scarcely worth while to be at the trouble of making
them. The hooding of hawks is an art in itself, and will be referred
to in a later chapter. When the hood is well on the hawk's head and
the beak well through the opening in front, the longer and thinner
of the braces at the back (A, A) are pulled apart, and the back of
the hood is thus drawn tight, so that it is impossible to remove it.
The shorter and stouter ends are pulled when it is desired to slacken
the fastening, so that the hood can be taken off by lifting the plume
forwards. Usually each of these operations is performed with the aid of
the right hand and the teeth. As the hawk stands on the falconer's left
fist with her tail outwards over his knuckles, he takes hold with his
right finger and thumb of the brace which is on the hawk's left side,
and then catches hold with his front teeth of the brace which is on the
hawk's right side. A sharp pull brings the ends apart, and the hood is
braced up or slackened, as the case may be. Before any hood is ever put
on, the falconer should remember to look inside it to see that no dust
or dirt or stray feathers or anything else has found its way in, and it
is as well to blow a puff of air into it to clear it of any particle of
dust.
[Illustration: HAWK'S FURNITURE, III.
24. HOOD-PROPER 25. SPRING SWIVEL AND LEASH FOR SMALL HAWK 26, 27.
DOUBLE RING LEASH 28. BRAIL]
The rufter-hood is made of much softer leather, with no plume, and a
simpler fastening. It is used for newly-caught hawks, and hardly need
be described in detail, as before the beginner has occasion for it
he will have learnt more about hoods than can be taught in any book.
Indian hoods are also made of softer leather, with a different and
smaller plume. They are fastened by braces which run round the lower
side, passing in and out of the leather and working by friction.
This completes the list of ordinary hawk's furniture. But there are
a few other appliances with which the beginner must become familiar
before he can undertake to train, or even to keep, a hawk.
A brail (Fig. 28) is a sort of manacle for an unmanageable hawk, which
keeps on bating and fidgeting with her wings. It consists of a narrow
strip of fine soft leather, having a slit two or three inches long
down the middle. Into this slit is inserted the pinion joint of the
hawk's closed wing. The upper end of the brail will then of course
extend upwards over her back, and the lower will hang downwards by her
side. Now take the upper end and pass it down under the under part of
her wing between it and her ribs. Pass the lower end in the contrary
direction upwards under the under side of the same wing. The two ends
will now be pointing in the opposite direction to that first described.
Next bring them together on the outside of the wing, and tie in a
plain bow-knot, making the bows very short and passing the single ends
through them. The hawk will be unable to open the wing, which will be
to all intents and purposes as useless to her, as long as the brail is
on, as if all the flight feathers in it had been cut.
A bath must always be offered to a trained hawk at least twice a week,
and oftener in fine and warm weather. And it is not a thing which
can always be improvised very easily. The best baths are sunk in the
ground, so that there are no upstanding sides round or under which a
leash can get entangled. But of course, unless great care is taken,
the ground round the edges of such a bath is apt to become slushy and
dirty, if much used. Whenever it is impossible to sink the bath in the
earth it is necessary that some person should be at hand when the hawks
are bathing, so that if the leash gets entangled he may come to the
rescue.
Many hawks have a tiresome way of jumping on and off the sides of the
bath, and running round it--in fact, as Winchester boys say, "funking
on the bank"--in complete oblivion of the fact that they are thereby
hitching up their leashes. For such hawks it is best to take off the
leash and substitute a creance three or four yards long, attaching the
end of this to the block on which they are deposited at the side of the
bath. All baths should be of a sufficient size. For gers they should be
nearly a foot deep at least, and well over a yard in diameter. For the
smallest jack-merlin they should be not less than four inches deep. A
hawk will not fully enjoy her bath unless she can wade into it, if she
chooses, up to her shoulders and over. In shallow water she is more or
less uncomfortable. Like Alexander the Great, in the small world of
antiquity, _æstuat infelix angusto in limite_; and her back and the
nape of her neck are never properly wetted, however much she may splash
about in the endeavour to throw the water over them. The bath should be
tilted up, so that it is shallower at one end than the other, and the
bather may get in, if she chooses, at the shallow end, and wade out as
far as she likes towards the other. According to immemorial custom a
few pebbles should be thrown in to lie on the floor of the bath. When
the weather is very cold, a cup or two of hot water may be added, to
take off the chill; and if the water used is taken from a deep and cool
well it should be allowed to stand for some time in the sun before
being put out for the hawks. Cemented basins in the ground make, of
course, capital bathing-places. But they are troublesome to keep clean,
and even to empty; and the surrounding edges are likely to become
small quagmires. Perhaps the most serviceable bath is a common flat
bedroom bath, sunk into a cavity in the ground, and removable at will.
A pretty tall block or for short-winged hawks a bow-perch, should be
placed near the bath, so that the bather, having finished her ablutions
may at once jump on to it.
In some places it is possible to indulge the hawks with a natural
bath. When there is in the neighbourhood a stream of clean water with
a sandy or gravelly bottom and shelving banks, the hawk may be carried
down to a suitable part of the bank, the block set up, and the creance
attached. She may be left on the block while the falconer retires to
a short distance, and will come back, when bathed, to her post. After
the bath, every hawk should remain out, bareheaded, for about an hour,
in the sun, if possible. She will busy herself first in spreading her
feathers to the sun and wind, and then in pluming and arranging them--a
work exceedingly agreeable to those hawks which are particular about
their own appearance.
The lure will be more particularly referred to later on. It may suffice
to say here that it is a rough imitation of some bird--or, if the hawk
is to be trained to ground-game, of some beast--used as a bait to which
the hawk is taught to come for food. It is attached to a strong cord
or thong a yard or more long, and sometimes to a swivel. It is the
invariable companion of the falconer in the field, though never allowed
to be seen by the hawk, except when she is required to come to it. The
lure should be a sort of magnet, operating to draw the hawk towards it
as surely as iron will attract a magnetised needle.
A cadge is a most necessary apparatus when a man is the possessor of
more than one hawk. The orthodox and historic cadge--such as one sees
in representations of _As You Like It_ on the stage, or, as once I
remember, at a Lord Mayor's Show--is a circular or square or oblong
frame of wood, three or four feet across, having straps by which it
can be suspended from the shoulders of a man, who in classic phrase
is termed a "cadger," and who stands or walks in the middle, with the
frame surrounding him. At each corner of the frame is a small jointed
leg, which can be hooked up when the cadge is being carried, and let
down when it is to be deposited on the ground. The bars which form the
body of the frame are padded on the top, and on these stand the hawks,
hooded of course, and fastened by their leashes to the frame. The man
with the cadge (whom in these days you will not address by his right
title, unless you wish him to give you a month's notice) will, if he
is a sharp fellow, so carry the cadge that all or most of the hawks
upon it face the wind. On windy days--and at rook-hawking time it is
mostly pretty windy--the cadge should be rested as much as possible
under the lee of some shelter, generally a rick. All hawks very much
detest a wind; and should not be unnecessarily exposed to it. In fact,
trained hawks must be, in this and in all other things, whether at home
or in the field, subjected to as little vexation and annoyance as can
be. Like other creatures, they have tempers of their own--sometimes
very queer ones; and they have enough to put up with, as it is, when
trained, without any extra trials that can fairly be spared them. A
cadge is shown in the illustration.
A still greater luxury for the field, especially in rook-hawking, is
the hawk-van, which is a sort of omnibus, fitted with screen-perches,
and hung on very easy springs. In it are conveyed the hawks which are
not for the time being in use, and also spare lures and other furniture
and properties, not forgetting the luncheon-basket. Such a vehicle
will be too pretentious, as well as too costly, for most private
individuals, but it is used successfully by the Old Hawking Club, whose
excellent arrangements and methods of training and managing hawks will
be repeatedly noticed in these pages.
The box-cadge is a very simple apparatus used for the transport of
hawks by train or other wheeled conveyance. It is nothing more than a
frame resembling the body of a box--very often a box itself--without
the lid. The four upper edges of the sides are padded to form perches.
Holes are bored in the sides an inch or two below, through which the
leashes can be passed and made fast. In the bottom of the box is
sawdust to catch the mutes; and the hawks are put on, as naturally they
would be, facing outwards, with their tails towards the inside of the
box. You will be surprised, if you have never seen it tried, how small
a box will accommodate six or eight great big hawks sitting in this
simple fashion. By the bye, the box-cadge should be heavily weighted,
to prevent upsetting or jolting, in case any hawk should unluckily bate
off.
[Illustration: CADGE WITH PEREGRINES]
The writer of these pages has invented an apparatus which may be called
a pole-cadge, and will attempt to describe it, because in his own
experience he has found it very useful and handy, especially for small
hawks. It consists of a plain pole--a broom-handle does very well--over
which a single or double fold of green baize is stretched and fastened.
About nine inches from each end of the perch thus formed, stout wire
is firmly twisted round it, and the ends of the wire are allowed to
project at an angle of about 90, from one another downwards. When the
perch is being carried, it is simply grasped by the middle in one hand;
and when it is desired to put it down, the four ends of the wire are
rested on the ground, or pushed into the earth if it is soft enough.
The hawks are, of course, attached by leashes tied round the pole, as
if they were on the screen-perch; and four can be accommodated with
the greatest ease on a short stick--one near the bearer's hand on each
side of it, and one near each end of the pole. A long stick would hold
six or eight hawks. There is no reason that I can see why a stouter
pole should not be used for big hawks. The advantage of this over the
ordinary and time-honoured cadge is that all the hawks, if properly
placed, must necessarily face the wind, and need never stand sideways
to it. The pole-cadge can also be picked up and set down much more
quickly. And for carrying hawks when driving in a dogcart or riding on
a bicycle--a not impossible feat in these days--this form of cadge is,
I think, unsurpassable.
Hawking-gloves, for wearing when a big hawk is on the fist, are
gauntleted half-way to the elbow, and made of buckskin or very strong
leather. They should, of course, be kept clean and dry. For the smaller
hawks a two-button dogskin glove is strong enough, and preferable. Some
hawks, when they are very sharp-set, or fidgety and in a bad humour,
will pick and tear at the glove or perch in a tiresome way, and even
tear it to pieces after a while. A cure for this is to rub the exposed
part of the glove or perch with onions or a solution of alum, the taste
of which will generally soon disgust the offender with that bad habit.
Very often, however, it is good to provide such a hawk with a very
tough piece of "tiring," such as the bare pinion of a goose or fowl,
upon which to expend her superfluous energy. Worn gloves should not be
patched or mended, but replaced by fresh ones. A glove which has once
become thoroughly greasy or sodden should be regarded as spoilt.
Mews, or hawk-houses, are more particularly described in Chapter XIII.
They should be absolutely free from draughts, and not liable to get too
hot in summer or too cold in winter. The doors should fit well, and
be kept locked as a rule; and the windows should all have well-fitting
shutters. They should be ventilated at the top, and be kept bare of
furniture and rubbish of all kinds, and scrupulously clean. The windows
should by preference face towards east and north. And in hot climates
there should be a verandah outside, and double roof above.
CHAPTER IV
Eyesses and Hack Hawks
Eyesses, or young hawks taken from the nest, should not be taken until
the latest possible day. If the captor can defer the moment until they
are able to fly a little, so much the better. He may then possibly
snare them by some means or another. But this is an exceedingly
difficult job, as the newly-fledged hawk is for a considerable time fed
by her parents, and does not prey for herself. Consequently, she will
not come to any live lure or baited trap, and, being very distrustful
of men, cannot easily even be approached. Thus it is rarely that even
an experienced falconer can lay hands on a wild hawk after it has once
left the eyrie. The next best thing to be done is to catch the eyesses
when they are branchers, that is to say, when they are able to run and
jump about on the branches of a tree, though not yet able to rise on
the wing from the ground. In short, the longer they can be left in the
natural nursery under the care of their natural guardians, the better
they are likely to turn out, not only in their bodily condition, but
in temper and disposition. Very often, however, the young birds will
come to their trainer when there is a good deal of the white down of
their infancy still clothing their unwieldy bodies, and only partially
replaced by the brown feathers of their first plumage. At any rate
the flight feathers of the wing will not be nearly down to their full
length. The outer ones will still have some inches to grow; and those
of the tail will be short soft things, with flabby shafts, and not much
shape or strength.
It is for many reasons desirable that the trainer should go personally
to the place where the eyrie is, and either himself assist in taking
the young birds, or at least be ready to receive them within a few
hours, and give them their first feed. Unfortunately, most hawk-dealers
and many gamekeepers have a rooted objection to this plan, and prefer
to muddle about with the hawks themselves, not sending them off to
the purchaser until they have already unwittingly done them more or
less injury, in one way or another. They either are, or pretend to be,
unable to understand or to believe that an eyess delivered immediately
into the trainer's hand is worth at least 25 per cent. more to him than
one which has been messed about by unskilled hands, and racketed about
in a train for several hours. This stupid prejudice of the captors
and vendors is often productive of the deplorable blemish called
hunger-streaks, which weakens every important feather in the hawk's
body, and to some extent checks and stunts her whole bodily growth and
energy, just at the time when it is most desirable that they should be
steadily maintained and developed. A hunger-streak is caused whenever
a young hawk has been allowed to grow unreasonably hungry. The result
is that that part of the whole web and shaft of each feather which
is growing out of the body at the time is deformed through want of
proper nourishment, and bears on it ever afterwards a cross line like a
blight, so that the feather looks as if a sharp razor had been passed
lightly across it. As the feather grows down this line comes down with
it, and may be seen in all its hideousness, after the hawk is summed,
if any big feather is examined carefully. A fast of more than fifteen
hours--in the daytime--will generally cause a slight hunger-streak;
but the night hours do not count for much; so that hawks which have to
travel far before getting into the trainer's hands should be taken late
in the day and started at once, so that they may be met as soon as they
arrive on the following day.
If the falconer cannot attend personally at the capture of the eyesses,
he should at least send to the captor a suitable hamper in which to
pack and send them. This should be roomy and round in shape, having
its sides and top lined inside with sacking, matting, or other soft
material. In the bottom of it a good thick layer of straw should be
lightly strewed, for the hawks to rest upon; and the lining should
fit well enough to exclude almost all light. Even with all these
precautions there is some risk of breaking feathers, and still more of
bending them and deforming them with dirt. On railways the guards may
generally be cajoled into taking special care that the hamper is not
turned upside down or banged about. But I have more than once known of
valuable hawks arriving dead from a short sea voyage--killed by the
evident ill-treatment to which the padded hamper has been subjected on
the way.
Once arrived at the trainer's quarters, the hamper should be opened
in a darkened room, with doors and windows closed, in which has been
got ready another straw-lined hamper, this time of an oblong or square
shape. Each hawk in her turn will be gently taken out of the soiled
travelling hamper, of which the lid can be shut down between the
times of removing the several inmates. Unless these are very young,
a rufter-hood can be slipped on the head of each one, and the jesses
and bell at once attached to her. If they have come far, a few morsels
of food may be given even before the new-comer has been deposited in
the second hamper. But, if too young to be able to move about much,
they can all be transferred directly to the new quarters, and the
lids left open. In every case the operation of feeding should be at
once undertaken. And a much more troublesome thing this operation is
than the unlearned may suppose. In the first place, there must be in
readiness a good store of fresh, tender beef or sheep's heart, cut into
small strips and slightly warmed. And of this the new-comers must by
some means or other be induced to swallow at least a small quantity.
If care has been taken from the very first not to alarm them, they may
possibly take the morsels of meat quietly and naturally, when offered
to them gently on the end of a small stick. If so, an important point
will have been gained. But it is much more likely that at the sight of
their new and awful-looking foster-parent--when a subdued light has
been let into the room--they will draw back their heads, open their
mouths, and hiss indignantly. Still, if the meat is very slowly and
quietly obtruded towards the open mouths, there is always a good chance
that one of them, bolder than the rest, will strike at it, half in
anger, and half with the idea that it may be good to eat. And, if such
a youngster should happen at the first shot to catch hold of the piece
she aims at, she is quite likely to swallow it, in which case the rest
of your task becomes easy. If things do not go quite so smoothly, and
a hawk which has seized the meat flips it scornfully away, there is
no need to give up the attempt. She may do this a dozen times, and at
the thirteenth time of asking may swallow the food and begin feeding
readily. Or, whilst pupil number one is thus making a fool of the
teacher, number two may take heart and come up to the attack, with a
more practical result. Even at the expense of much time and patience,
it is worth while to get the youngsters to conform from the first, and
take their rations willingly and amicably. As soon as one has done this
the others will follow suit, some quickly and others grudgingly. If
all such efforts fail, or if the hawks, being nearly grown up, bate
and begin to dash about, you must, of course, use rougher measures.
To starve them is worst of all. There is no harm, if all modes of
persuasion fail, in "stuffing" a young hawk. Let her be held firmly,
and as she opens her mouth in defiance at the meat offered, let the
falconer push it inside her beak, and then, if she will not swallow
it, push it down with the small stick into her throat. I have known
an eyess hobby which had to be "stuffed" with all her meals for eight
days! And afterwards she became a fine hawk and a very strong flier.
When all the hawks have taken a half-crop or so, they should be left
in peace in the darkened room for two hours at least. It is a good
thing, by the way, to put on each of them different-coloured jesses,
so that from the first they may be easily known apart. Brown, yellow,
white, orange, and black are perhaps the best colours--not red, or
pink, or green. Notes may also be made from the first in a hawk-book or
falconer's diary. As, for instance, "June 10--Eyess peregrines arrived;
No. 1: small falcon; fed readily, and had nearly a full crop; seems
strong and active; outer wing feather about half down; brown jesses and
hack bell. No. 2: big tiercel or small falcon (uncertain); fed with
difficulty; half a crop; seems timid and rather dull; black jesses." Of
course, if the hawks are to be turned out as soon as they can fly, no
slits will be made in the outer end of the jesses. Another thing which
may very probably have to be done is to clean the hawk's tail-feathers,
and possibly the tips of the wings, if soiled during the journey. This
is done with warm water, soap, and an old toothbrush. If the dirt is
allowed to get hard on the feathers it will be almost impossible to
get it off without fraying the web. The feet of each hawk should also
be well washed and brushed with soap and warm water; and it is always
as well to do the same with the nares, or else brush them and the beak
with a brush dipped in a solution of tobacco. A fresh feed should be
given at intervals of not more than five hours between sunrise and
sunset, _i.e._ three at least in the day. In fact, young nestlings
can hardly be fed too often or too much, when they seem ready to eat.
But the food should not often be as heavy as beef. Young pigeons,
young chickens, bullock's heart, and rabbits may be given to the big
hawks; small birds--fresh-killed always--and sheep's heart to the
small ones. Old pigeons are rather too heating, and old fowls are too
tough. Whenever butcher's meat is given, it should be slightly warmed
first, but not dipped in water. The hawks must be kept quite dry, and
in a moderately warm but airy place, away from all draughts. Very
young sparrow-hawks must be kept in a specially warm and well-sheltered
place, or they are pretty sure to develop a fatal attack of cramp.
Whenever it may be necessary to move a young hawk or meddle with her,
the room should be made as nearly dark as possible.
After a few feeds, administered quietly and patiently, the young hawks
will begin to lose their distrust of their new surroundings; and
first one and then the others will begin to take their meat eagerly,
stretching their necks out, and perhaps pushing their way towards the
feeder's hand. When this is the case they may be indulged with a few
tit-bits on the fist or on the lure. If the lure is used, the pieces of
meat should be merely laid upon it, so that at first the hawk may pick
them off quite easily; and by degrees they may be made to walk towards
it from their artificial nest along a causeway roughly constructed for
that purpose. If it is preferred to get them to feed on the fist, as
it probably will in the case of short-winged hawks, they must first be
made to pick pieces off the gloved hand. Then hold in the gloved fist,
between the outer part of the thumb and the end of the forefinger, a
very tender piece of meat or wing of a small bird. As the hawk takes
hold of it, and finds that it cannot be taken up without a pull, she
will, at once or after a while, give a tug at it, and afterwards
probably put out a foot and seize the glove, using her foot as a
leverage, just as an oarsman uses his stretcher. A little encouragement
will make this easy for her; and by a little management it can be so
arranged that she gets both feet upon the fist. Thus by degrees she
will be induced to stand on the back of the hand, and in that position
tear up her food. The next step is to raise her slowly up on the fist,
while busy at her meal. In like manner, when pulling at the lure, she
may be lifted bodily on it, and thence shifted adroitly on to the fist,
while the garnished part of the lure is still kept under her.
With a little luck this stage of the young bird's education may have
been reached at almost the same time when the feathers are nearly down
and they are ready to fly. In such case the sooner they are turned out
to hack the better. When they have grown so accustomed to feeding on
the lure or on hand that they will run to it as soon as they see it,
they may be let loose in the hack field, with a man to watch them,
having a lure with him to entice them if they stray away. Most of the
popular books dealing with hawking complacently assume that here no
difficulty arises. Unfortunately for the beginner, such difficulties
will occur, even in the best-regulated establishments. For instance,
the hawks may begin to fly the very day after they arrive, and before
they will feed willingly. What is to be done in such a case? Well,
each hawk must be made to the lure or the fist before she is turned
out. She may be brailed and kept in a spare room, with or without her
sisters and brothers. Or she may have slits cut in her jesses, and
be attached by a leash to a block, for all the world like a trained
hawk, and thence enticed by degrees to run to the lure for her food,
until she is keen for it. She should at least know what the lure means
before being let entirely loose. But it is generally sufficient that
one of a lot which came from the same nest should be made to the lure.
The rest, when turned out, will find their way, when hungry, after her
to the feeding-place. Some special caution should be observed with
hobbies. I know of two which would come to the lure in an outhouse, but
only reluctantly. They were turned out one morning to hack in a quiet
place, and, though they had never flown more than a yard high before,
went up into tall fir-trees. And there they remained, staring at the
well-garnished lures which were laid out underneath, declining to go
down, taking short flights from tree to tree, and cruising about in the
air. This state of affairs continued for about three days, after which
it was discovered that the two youngsters--who had never been seen
to chase anything, far less to kill it--had become wild hawks! Some
falconers habitually carry their eyesses, break them to the hood, and
partially reclaim them, before turning them out to hack. But the more
natural and promising system is never to confine them at all until they
are taken up at the end of the period of hack. The youngster, when thus
treated, has become, by the time she has to be put in training, as like
a wild hawk as a tame one can be. And, as the haggard is better than
the red passager, and the passager than the soar-hawk, so by analogy
it may be assumed as a rule that the hack hawk which has never been
handled is superior to the eyess which has. Sir John Sebright's plan of
putting out the young hawks in a hamper hung against a tree-trunk, with
the lid of the hamper turned down as a platform by day, and fastened up
at night, will answer with orderly, well-behaved hawks. But it will be
wise to keep a close watch upon the artificial nest, in case of a hawk
jumping off when it can run but cannot fly. It might stray for ever so
far, and hide in bushes, or be devoured by a cat or fox.
We suppose now that the eyesses are at hack. Even yet their outer wing
feathers will not be fully down; and the sails, even of those which
will ultimately be the longest winged, appear rounded at the ends,
like those of a sparrow-hawk. But they will very soon learn to fly
quite well, with a rather gliding movement, the tips of the feathers
bending upwards as they strike the air. They will not go far from the
spot where they are turned out. What sort of place should this be that
is chosen for the hack ground? That depends upon the facilities which
the trainer enjoys for selecting a country. None perhaps is better
than a large park, with fir-trees in it, or an open moor with a few
stone walls. If the falconer is nervous about turning out a whole
nestful at once, he may tether one of the most backward at a block in
the middle of the hack field, with a "tiring" to amuse her, and place
some garnished lures on the ground near to her, to which the liberated
hawks may come when they like. There should also be spare blocks put
out in the field, upon which the hack hawks may jump if they like after
feeding. Of course, if the weather is very wet, the commencement of
hack should be deferred till it is more settled, and the hawks brailed
and let loose in an empty room or loft. If they have been "manned"
pretty well before they are turned out, and will allow themselves to be
taken up when feeding on the lure, they may be taken in under shelter
the first night or two. But if it is fairly warm and fine they will be
better left out. They will generally at or soon after sunset go up into
pretty tall trees to roost. If they stay too long on a block or a gate
or post, it is as well to drive or take them off, and see that they are
perched up somewhere aloft, out of harm's way. By the bye, hawks, as
a rule, should be turned loose in the early part of the day, after a
light feed, so that they may be sure to get hungry again by the middle
of the day. Jubilee, the best hack hawk I ever had, when he was let
loose at 7 a.m., having never before flown two yards, spread his wings,
and at the first start flew softly but steadily away across a small
river, and, rising easily, took perch 300 yards off on the top branches
of an elm 70 feet high. He afterwards flitted about from one high tree
to another within a range of 500 yards, and only at midday came down to
his sister, who was eating her luncheon at a block in the hack field.
He spent that night in a tall elm, not far off, and did not go more
than half a mile from the hack field until he was taken up nearly a
fortnight later.
If the falconer can hack his own hawks, so much the better. He will
learn during the process much about their individual characters
and aptitudes. Often he will name them in accordance with their
peculiarities or the adventures which each may meet with. It is,
however, generally possible for him to get his hawks hacked by some
other person, or to purchase fully-hacked hawks after they have been
taken up. The worst of it is that unless you know a good deal about the
deputy hawk-master, you have no guarantee that the month's hack which
they are supposed to have had is real or imaginary.
On the first or second day of hack the falconer should make up his mind
whether he will hack his hawks to the lure, to the fist, or to the
board. For short-winged hawks the fist or the board is preferable. For
gers, peregrines, and hobbies, the board or the lure. For merlins, the
lure and the fist, combined in such proportions as seems to be most
suitable; generally more of the lure than of the fist. Each of the
systems has its merits, and each its defects.
If the board is chosen, it must be substituted at once for the lure
which was used on the first day. It consists of a plank or log of
wood, the lower side of which rests on the ground, while to the top
side is attached the food for the expected guests. One ration should
be provided for each hawk out--at intervals of two feet or so all
along the board. It is very important that the meat should be so
attached that it cannot be pulled off and carried away, but must be,
strictly speaking, consumed on the premises. When the feast consists
of rabbits' legs, fowls' wings, or the like, it can be firmly tied by
the bone. But, when meat is given, much care and ingenuity is required
to make it fast. Perhaps the best plan is to tie the piece tightly by
the two opposite corners. If it is possible for a hawk to bolt with a
substantial piece, she is quite likely to do so. And, having done so
once, she will try to do it again, especially if she happens to be a
shy hawk, and afraid of her stronger sisters who are beside her at the
board.
It must be confessed that hawks at hack exhibit a good deal of
perversity in their dealings with the hack board. Theoretically, each
of them ought to come down punctually at meal-time, and take her place
at the _al fresco_ table, where she can eat up in peace and quiet
the portion set out for her, without interference by or with her
neighbours. But, as a matter of fact, I regret to say that, instead
of adopting this rational and orderly course, hack hawks are often no
better behaved than an American traveller at a roadside feeding-place,
or a dowager at a ball-supper. As soon as the first comer has settled
down to that part of the board to which chance or choice has brought
her, the next comer will make straight for the same spot, taking no
notice whatever of the dainty morsels with which the rest of the board
is bedecked. Thereupon, of course, squabblings and bickerings, and
probably a scuffle, in which the weaker or less greedy of the rival
gluttons is driven off. Sometimes there will be three hungry young
ladies at the same piece, and a sort of battle ensues. Fortunately
the quarrel does not end in blows, nor in broken feathers, unless the
edges of the board have carelessly been left square and sharp at the
upper edges. The disadvantages of the board-school system, as it may be
called, are thus considerable. It leads to rivalries and jealousies,
and sometimes to free fights, among the school-children. These are not
birds which, in the words of Dr. Watts, "in their little nests agree."
Moreover, one bad habit at least is very likely to be learnt. It is
impossible always to fix on the rations to the board so that they
cannot be pulled off until finished. Suppose, now, that a tiercel,
having eaten half his ration, finds that the remainder has come loose.
And suppose that one of his sisters, having made a joint meal farther
down the board with another falcon, happens to want some more. She may
turn a covetous eye towards the tiercel's portion. Upon which exit the
latter, food in hand, closely followed by his big sister, who gives
him a hot time of it, chasing him about the hack field, and probably
catching him. Then follows a tooth-and-nail encounter, in which the
male, or unworthier sex, as it is with hawks, gets the worst of it.
Few things can be more conducive than this to the tiresome vice of
carrying. It is for this reason that, in the case of merlins, which are
especially addicted to this fault, I do not much believe in the board
system. On the other hand, it has its advocates and its advantages.
Hawks which are so hacked soon become much wilder than when treated in
another way. And wildness, at this period of a hawk's life, is a thing
to be desired. Board-school hawks, when taken up, are found to more
nearly resemble a wild-caught bird. They seldom or never scream. They
have none of the namby-pamby, molly-coddle habits of the fist-fed or
lure-fed eyess. They do not hang about round the trainer, or follow
him like spaniels. On the contrary, they often will not come down
to the board unless he retires to a respectful distance. They are
unapproachable by any louts or strollers who may come in sight, and,
being shy, take wing very readily, and generally get more flying, and
at a better pace.
If the lure system is chosen, the trainer goes to the hack field at
feeding-times with as many lures as there are hawks at hack. Each lure
must be so heavy that the hawk cannot move it at all, and the food
must be attached so that it cannot be pulled off while uneaten. To the
first hawk which comes up the first lure will be thrown out; to the
second comer another; and so on till the last is served. Fighting will
occur, no doubt, as it is impossible to prevent two hawks from coming
down to one lure. But, then, the master of the ceremonies is at hand to
separate the combatants, and keep each to her own lure, whereas at the
board they have to just fight it out.
It is much the same thing with the fist-feeding system. But this can
hardly be attempted with success when many big hawks are at hack
together. As the trainer comes to the hack field, the hack hawks will
come up, taking perch on his hand, his head, his shoulder, or wherever
they can find a place. Two or three may generally be accommodated on
the left forearm and fist. From his meat-box or feeding-pouch the
trainer will take out with his right hand the prepared mouthfuls of
food, and distribute them impartially among the hungry claimants. But
if there is more than one hawk out, it will be found almost necessary,
and certainly convenient, to use lures as well. After a few morsels
have been distributed, these lures can be thrown down for all the hawks
except one, which may finish her meal on the fist. One day one hawk may
thus be retained, and another day another may take her turn, so that
all keep up their habit of feeding freely there. Sparrow-hawks which
are to be hacked on this system may be coped a little before they are
turned out, for they have a way of digging in their claws to any soft
place. But a goshawk can only be hacked to the fist if she or he is
the only one out. The spectacle of a falconer (or ostringer, to use
the correct word) with a goshawk's claws firmly fixed in his head or
shoulder would be a rare subject for a serio-comic portrait!
Meal-times for the hack hawks should be pretty punctually observed.
Otherwise the hawks will become irregular in their habits, and the
falconer will be compelled rather to dance attendance on them than they
on him. The food may be left out on the board for an hour each time,
and then removed, before it has become fly-blown or soaked with rain
or frizzled in the sun. 6 to 7 a.m., noon to 1, and 6 to 7 p.m., are
very good hours. And each time when the board is garnished and the food
in readiness, the trainer may blow a whistle, or ring a bell, or sound
a gong, to give notice from afar. At each meal there must be "calling
over"; and if there is any absentee a mark must be recorded against his
or her name.
A bath or two must be set out in the hack field. From about 9 to 11
a.m. it should be kept pretty full of clean fresh water; but it should
be removed or emptied before noon. Most hawks are very capricious about
bathing; and hobbies, which want it most, will seldom bathe at all.
The others should be accustomed to bathe early in the day, so that
when they are old they will not depart from this godly habit. Plenty of
blocks should stand around, on which the bathed hawks may stand to sun
and air themselves.
The longer the period of hack can be safely protracted the better for
the hack hawk and her trainer. All the while she is learning to fly.
During the latter part she is also learning to chase and to stoop. Here
it is that the danger comes in. For in that ardour of youthful chase
what kills may come! At first the random shots made from tall tree-tops
at passing swallows will be wide enough of the mark. Even the young
missel-thrushes or wood-pigeons which have frequented the hack ground
will make light of the clumsy efforts made to cut them down; and the
house-pigeons from the nearest dovecot will treat with supreme contempt
the well-meaning but awkward stoops made at them. But every day finds
the young hawks more expert, as well as stronger on the wing. The
long feathers are now all down. The shafts harden, and no longer bend
perceptibly as the wing-tips strike the air. Presently the flights at
wild birds are no longer mere child's play. The fugitives have to exert
themselves to save their skins. Very likely the young hunters of the
air are not at first altogether in earnest. Secure of their food at the
hack board or lure or fist, and trusting to it for their subsistence,
they are merely "having a lark" with the intruders on what has begun to
be their domain. But it is increasingly difficult to know how much of
their endeavours is play and how much real business. Be sure, however,
that when any stoop, whether playful or not, proves successful, and the
unfortunate victim is in the pursuer's clutch, there will be no more
play; and on some lonely patch of ground not fifty miles from the hack
field there will be left a litter of feathers, the mortal remains of
the first quarry killed by hawks of the year.
Let me here quote from my hawk diary: "12 noon; out to hack field,
and follow a blackbird down Butt's orchard hedge. Nearing the corner,
blackbird (young cock) takes across the orchard. Drop him, winged, as
he goes over the front hedge; and he falls in the hack field. Jubilee
[eyess male merlin] is on a block in the middle of it, 90 yards off. It
is his third day out. As the blackbird falls, he starts, and, stooping
at it as it runs, takes it, kills it, and begins to plume it like a
wild hawk before I get up." Pretty sharp work this for a little hawk
that had never used his wings till the day before yesterday. But this
capture of a winged bird was not counted as a "kill"; and Jubilee was
left out for a good eight days more, and might probably have been left
a few longer. Hack hawks know no sentimental scruples about taking
their prey on the ground. Here is another extract from a hawk diary:
"6.30 a.m., out and fed hack hawks on lure. 'She' not visible. At 7
saw her on wire fence, half-way across park. As I got near with lure
she started, and, flying low over the ground away from me, turned
suddenly, and dropped on some bird in the grass. Was pluming it, when
heifers came right up to her. Then lifted, and carried into the lower
belt. Quarry looked like a missel-thrush." The same day "She" was taken
up. It is a risky thing to leave hawks out after they have once begun
serious and successful chasing. Yet it is a thousand pities to take
them up too soon, just when they are improving most rapidly. Peregrines
may be left out, with heavy hack-bells, for four weeks or occasionally
more. Merlins seldom more than three weeks. If the hack place and its
neighbourhood are very open, and the wild birds about are few, there is
less danger, and less need for hurry. But when the trees and bushes are
well stocked with wood-pigeons, thrushes, and small birds, beware.
It is now that the advantage will be seen of putting distinctive jesses
on the hawks. The trainer must watch the board carefully. He may not
be able to get within 80 yards of it. But from his hiding-place, be
it far or near, he must tell over the number of his charges every
morning, noon, and evening, so as to see that all have been down. A
field-glass may be necessary to identify each visitant. Brown-jess may
come down at 6 a.m., take a light breakfast, and be off. White-jess
may not appear till 12; and even then no signs of Black-jess. The case
begins to look serious. But at 12.50 at last a hawk comes down. Is
this the truant? Or is it Brown-jess again, with her luncheon appetite
come on? The glass will tell you quickly if the colour of the jesses
worn corresponds to the one name or the other. But if both hawks wore
the same coloured jesses, you could not say. If the last comer is
Black-jess--only delayed till so late by mere want of appetite--she may
be left out, perhaps for some days longer. And the extra days' exercise
will undoubtedly make her a faster and stronger hawk. But if you cannot
tell one hawk from another, it will be impossible for you to know when
one has missed two successive meals or not. If Black-jess absents
herself all day until the evening repast, the inference is strong that
in the morning she killed something for herself. If she keeps away for
a whole day, that conclusion becomes almost a certainty. She must be
taken up when the first chance occurs. Here, however, arises a fresh
difficulty. If it is a tiercel who so absents himself--especially a
small tiercel--the presumption that he has killed for himself is pretty
well conclusive. But what if it is a falcon? Her brother may have
chased and killed; and the sister--a slow hawk who could not catch
anything for herself--may have seen the flight, or seen the tiercel
pluming his dead quarry, and then come up, and by her superior strength
driven him off, and pirated the spoil. You, wrongly inferring that it
was she who killed the quarry, will take her up the next day, quite
prematurely, and leave the real captor, who is much more worthy of
bonds and imprisonment, to remain in dangerous liberty. The same doubt
may arise when the absentee is an extra strong and extra greedy bird of
either sex. That she or he has breakfasted or dined out is, of course,
equally clear. But was it the captive of her own wings and talons
that she devoured, or that of a weaker, but cleverer, hawk? These
are questions impossible to answer, unless some person has actually
seen what occurred. The safest plan, though not the most magnanimous,
when such evidence cannot be got, is, when one hawk has clearly been
killing, to take the whole lot up.
Hack hawks are as various in their habits at hack as they are at all
other times. Some are lazy, some active, some both by fits and starts.
One will be playful, and find a childish delight in chasing butterflies
or falling leaves. Others, surly and ill-tempered, ready on slight
provocation to make vicious stoops at their brethren or sisters.
Some will sit for hours sullenly on a post; others will fly long
distances for their own amusement, and soar aloft to a good height.
These are the most promising. The falconer, if he keeps his eyes
open, will have learnt before hack is over pretty well the relative
speeds and particular dispositions of his wards. Rarely are these
early indications falsified in after-life. But a backward hawk is not
necessarily a bad hawk. During quite the last days of hack a hawk which
had seemed rather dull and slow will sometimes wake up, and put on pace
in an astonishing way, until from being a member of the awkward squad
she comes to rival the leaders of the whole school in activity and
speed. But a sulky and moping hawk seldom turns out first-rate.
Speed is the great desideratum in a hawk. It is like the "big
battalions" in an army; like a good eye to a cricketer. When people
complain about bad-tempered hawks, it is often the trainer who is to
blame. But in the matter of speed, as shown at hack time, the trainer
is hardly, if at all, responsible. Bad temper is a nuisance, no
doubt, and a difficulty. But want of speed is worse. It is incurably
destructive of good sport. And here, speaking of the relative speeds
of hawks at hack, I will ask leave to relate two anecdotes. Queen, a
powerful and speedy, but not very brilliant flier, went off with a
rabbit's head, pursued by her sister and two brothers. Winding about
along the side of a long hedge, now one side and now the other, she
evaded all their stoops, and, after reaching the end of the hedge,
where there were some elms and oaks, dodged rapidly in and out among
them, loaded as she was, throwing out all the pursuers, and finally
conveying her booty to a safe corner, where she discussed it all by
herself in peace.
On his eleventh day of hack, Jubilee, the male merlin already referred
to, was sitting with his two sisters and one brother in the branches of
a fallen tree in the hack field, under which I was seated, garnishing
the lures for their delectation a little later on. Suddenly the little
hawk started at his best pace right down the field. I supposed that he
was after some blackbird in the far hedge. But before reaching it he
turned, and began mounting as he came back towards me. I looked round,
and for the first time saw that a wild kestrel had come over into the
field, and was dodging the stoops made at him by the remaining merlins.
Now this kestrel was one of a brood which had been flying at hack under
their parents' care in a neighbouring field. They were already strong
on the wing before the merlins were turned out; and I had been rather
fearing, when I discovered their near presence, that they might do the
young merlins a bad turn. No encounter had, however, as yet occurred
between the two families. The kestrel had at first little difficulty
in eluding the stoops of the three merlins, who seemed not much in
earnest. But when Jubilee came over, at some height in the air, there
was a different tale to tell. With his first stoop he made the wild
hawk cry out; at the second he almost feathered him, and made him
shuffle off to the orchard near at hand, where, swirling round the
tree-trunks, he threw out his assailant, and made off to a tall elm.
Here, no doubt, he fancied he was safe, especially as the other hawks,
on Jubilee's appearance, tailed off. But not a bit of it. Throwing
himself well up above the elm, the little jack dashed down at the enemy
in the tree, dislodged him, and with a back-handed stoop drove him down
to the ground, hunted him all across a meadow, grazing him at every
shot he made, and lost him in a big orchard farther on. The pace of
the wild hawk was very poor in comparison with that of this half-tame
lure-hacked merlin. It seemed as if the latter could have given him
ten yards in a hundred. In straight-ahead flying, in mounting, and
in throwing up, the kestrel was completely outpaced. Yet before now
trained merlins, as I have heard tell, have been outflown and chased by
a wild kestrel. I should not like, and do not ever expect, to own such
a trained merlin.
The day comes--all too soon--when the falconer dares to keep the hack
hawks out no longer. The decree goes out for one to be taken up. If
this one has been hacked to the fist the proceeding is simple enough.
As she stands complacently breakfasting on the fist, the jesses are
grasped in the fingers of the left hand. A couple of snips with a
sharp pair of strong nail-scissors make a slit in the two jesses. And
through these a spring swivel is deftly slipped. Attached to the swivel
is a leash, the end of which is wound round the little finger, while
the button of it is grasped in the palm of the left hand. As the hawk
proceeds with her meal she is taken quietly to a darkened room, where a
rufter hood is slipped on her head. Five minutes' carrying, and she is
placed on a mound of turf, food and all, while the leash, unwound from
the little finger, is fastened to a peg strongly planted in the ground.
If the hawk has been hacked to the lure or to the board, the process is
a little more complicated, but presents no real difficulty. A bow-net
must then be used. This instrument is more fully described in the
next chapter. It consists of a hoop of metal on which a light net is
stitched. The ends are fixed down; and the hoop is so set that a pull
on a long string will bring the rim up and over any object which may be
near it on the near side. The object, of course, in this case will be
the lure, or the piece of food with which the hack board is garnished.
When the hawk is feeding, the string is pulled. The net swings over,
encompassing both meat and hawk. Up runs the falconer, to secure the
captive, who is made fast, hooded, and taken home.
Even if a hawk has begun to prey for herself, she can still often be
captured with a live lure, that is, a live bird attached to a light
cord. Once find the hawk, and let the live lure fly, and she is pretty
sure to take it. Then she may be snared in one of the ways described in
the chapter on Lost Hawks.
A hack hawk, once taken up, is treated in very much the same way as a
wild-caught hawk. The process of reclamation begins at once. And this
process will be found described at length in the succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER V
Passage Hawks
All big hawks captured after they have begun to prey for themselves
are now commonly called passage hawks, although the name, strictly
speaking, may not be at all correct. Wild-caught is a more inclusive
term; and it is often used in the case of sparrow-hawks, merlins, and
hobbies, when casually caught by bird-catchers or gamekeepers, and not
killed in the process. We have seen that passage hawk means properly
a hawk caught during the period of her first migration southwards. It
is, however, of course, possible to capture her either in early autumn
before the migration has commenced--in which case a peregrine is more
properly called a slight falcon or slight tiercel--or late in the
winter, when she has become a lantiner, or in the spring migration,
when she is travelling north. But if she has begun to moult before she
comes into man's possession, she is correctly described as a haggard.
If gamekeepers were a little more alive to their own interests they
would often catch sparrow-hawks, and sometimes merlins and peregrines,
alive, and dispose of them at a very remunerative price, instead of
killing them, often in a most barbarous way, by means of pole-traps
and other snares, which destroy or cripple them after hours of
torture, and render them almost valueless. But for generations past
no systematic attempts have been made in this country to snare wild
hawks in an uninjured condition; and if a falconer should be able to
obtain any hawk so taken he may consider himself exceptionally lucky.
Several such hawks have indeed been caught in England, and, getting
rather accidentally into good hands, have turned out very excellent
performers. Occasionally a sparrow-hawk or merlin is saved alive out of
the nets of a bird-catcher; and these, if heard of before their plumage
is ruined, are prizes for which many a falconer will gladly give
something like their weight in silver.
But, as a rule, the full-grown hawks which come into the market
are captives which have been taken on the autumnal passage by the
professional hawk-catchers of Valkenswaard, in North Brabant. The sons
of Adrian Möllen, formerly falconer to the famous Loo Club, still carry
on this business of snaring peregrines on the great open heath, which
for many centuries has been resorted to for a like purpose, and which,
of course, takes its name from its renown as a place over which the
migrants must often pass. Anyone who wants a wild-caught peregrine
should write beforehand to one of these gentlemen, who will probably
not fail to send him what he requires. They go out every year, in
the months of October and November, and lie in wait daily in their
cunningly-constructed huts until they have secured as many captives
as have been ordered in various places. A dozen or more are annually
required for England, and sometimes a few for France. The variety most
in demand is the red falcon, that is to say, the female peregrine
in the nestling plumage, not yet moulted. But blue falcons are also
sometimes wanted, and of late years there has been some considerable
demand for tiercels, both red and blue. Merlins, sparrow-hawks, and an
occasional goshawk may be taken, and, still more rarely, a ger. The
price for a falcon is four to five pounds, and of a tiercel from three
to four. But a special apparatus is required for catching the smaller
hawks, which will not usually come to the same lure as a peregrine. If
the captured hawk has to be kept for any length of time in the captor's
hands before being fetched or sent away, an extra charge is made for
her maintenance.
The device whereby the wild hawk is caught in Holland is somewhat
elaborate. It has more than once been described in print, and may be
briefly noticed here. A hut is first built up with sods of turf in
an open part of the plain. It looks from outside like a mere knoll
or rising in the ground. A nearer inspection shows a small opening
in front, through which a man, or at a pinch two men, can crawl. It
is fitted with a low seat inside, and at the back, behind and above
the seat, is an aperture something like the small port-hole of a
cabin, which can be opened by pulling out a sod of turf, and closed by
replacing the same. This is to enable the hawk-catcher to spy out at
a hawk which is coming up from behind his back. Outside the hut and
in front of it is a sort of small altar or table of turf, on the flat
top of which is pegged down, by means of a short creance and jesses, a
butcher-bird or shrike. Scraps of meat are set out for the delectation
of this feathered watchman, who is also indulged with a miniature hut
of his own, into which he may retreat when terrified, as it is hoped
that he soon may be. The eyesight of this tethered spy is so keen that
he can descry his enemy the hawk at an incredible distance in the sky.
Whenever one is approaching, though far out of range of the sharpest
human eye, he begins to exhibit signs of alarm. As the hawk comes
nearer he fidgets more and more, glancing nervously--or pointing, as
they call it--in the direction of the foe. If the latter still comes
nearer, he will cry out in his terror, and finally run cowering under
the shelter of his hut.
Meanwhile the falconer has not been idle. Snatching the turf shutter
from the little window behind him, he takes a look through his
field-glass in the direction to which the shrike is pointing, searching
for the coming hawk as an astronomer does for a lost star. If, on
espying it, he judges that it is a peregrine, he sets to work seriously
about the main business of the day.
At some distance from the hut is fixed up a pole with a line--we will
call it A--running from the top of it to the hut. To this line, at
some yards distance from the pole, is attached a branch line, after
the manner of the paternoster used in angling, at the end of which is
a live pigeon in jesses. When the line A is slack, the pigeon rests on
the ground, or in a hut to which he is at liberty to resort when he
likes. But if, by a pull in the falconer's hut, the line A is pulled
taut, up goes the pigeon in the air, and flutters about at the end of
his branch line, conspicuous from afar. Often there is a second pole at
a like distance from the big hut, but in a rather different direction;
and to this a second line, B, is attached, with a tame tiercel or
peregrine of some sort, rigged out in the same way as the pole-pigeon.
This hawk may have a handful of straw or worsted fastened to one of his
feet, so that he may look as if he had some dead quarry in possession,
and serve the better to attract the wild passager. As the shrike
points, and the wild hawk is coming up, the falconer works with a will
by the two strings A and B at the pole-hawk and the pole-pigeon. But
as soon as the passager is nearly overhead, and the shrike has hidden
himself, it is time to let loose the pole strings and let the very live
lures attached to it also bolt into shelter.
We now come to another component part of the Dutch hawk-trap. A third
line, C, leads from the hut to a small ring-peg in the ground sixty
or eighty yards away, passes through it, and a few feet farther on,
but at the side, is attached to a live pigeon in a box, out of which
it can be pulled by drawing the line. One more particular, and the
whole apparatus is complete. On each side of the ring-peg, and about
two feet from it, are pegs which hold down the hinges of a bow-net,
something like that which was used for catching up the hack hawks.
The usual and best way of making a bow-net is to take two equal
lengths of strong wire, five or six feet long, and bend each into a
nearly semicircular arch. The two ends of each hoop are twisted up
into a ring, and the two hoops are joined together so that a sort of
easy hinge is formed at the ends. A net of fine but strong string is
stretched over the whole circle formed by the two hoops. When it is
set, one-half of it is pegged down flat on the ground and the other
is folded back over it. To the middle of the upper hoop is attached a
fourth long line, D, by which it can be pulled over, so that when the
line is taut the hoops form a circle, with the net covering all the
space between the hinges. This will explain how the falconer, ensconced
in his hut, can, by a pull at the long line D, passing through a ground
peg to the arch of the bow-net, pull it over the ring through which
the line C passes. Thus there are four lines of which the ends lie in
the floor of the hut, each marked with a different colour, and each
requiring to be worked with prompt and accurate skill at the eventful
moment.
We can now understand the whole process of entrapping the passage hawk,
and shall find that it includes the following movements:--(1) Pointing
of the shrike; (2) removal of the turf shutter, and observation of the
coming hawk through the field-glass; (3) pulling of the lines A and B,
by which the pole-pigeon and the pole-hawk are made to flutter or fly
about and show themselves; (4) slackening of these lines and escape
of the pole-pigeon, pole-hawk, and shrike, under their respective
places of shelter. By this time the wild hawk ought to be close at
hand, and eagerly looking out for the pigeon which has so mysteriously
disappeared. Then (5) tightening of the line C, by which the hitherto
unseen pigeon is pulled out of his box, and displayed to the expectant
hawk above; (6) capture of this pigeon by the hawk. Next (7) a much
stronger and steadier pull is given to the line C, by which the far end
of it is dragged--pigeon, hawk, and all--towards the ring between the
horns of the bow-net. As soon as the pigeon, with the hawk upon it, has
got to this ring, a piece of tape or ribbon fastened on to a particular
place on the line C will have been pulled to a certain place within the
hut, and will warn the falconer that he need pull it no farther, as all
things are now ready for the next and most critical move. Then, holding
the line C still tight in one hand, the operator (8) will, with a quick
well-sustained effort, tighten the line D, and pull the net over hawk
and pigeon. All that remains now for the falconer to do is (9) to
make fast the end of the line D round a peg fixed in the hut for that
purpose, and then (10) to run out, with his best leg foremost, and take
the captive out of the net.
The reader may think this rather a needlessly elaborate and complicated
device; but it is a very sure one, when the operator does not bungle.
It has stood the test of many centuries, and is as good now as it was
in the days of Alfred the Great. There is no doubt that by means of
such an apparatus--slightly simplified, perhaps--wild peregrines might
be taken on the Wiltshire and Berkshire downs. Lord Lilford once had
a hut or huts out in England with some success. A similar apparatus,
with a less elaborate hiding-place, would enable keepers or shepherds
to catch many a sparrow-hawk and some merlins. For the former there
is almost always a good demand. So far is it from being true, as many
books assert, that "sparrow-hawks are easy to procure," there are
always half a dozen falconers in England who are vainly wishing that
they could lay hands on one.
To extract a wild hawk of any kind, but especially a ger, peregrine, or
goshawk, from the bow-net is sometimes no laughing matter. To set about
it with thickly-gloved hands involves much awkwardness, and is not
unlikely, in the case of an inexperienced man, to end in the loss of
the hawk. There is also the danger of breaking feathers, or even a bone
in the wing or leg. On the other hand, to go to work with even one hand
ungloved exposes you, unless you are adroit beyond the average of human
beings, to some particularly painful punctures and gashes. There are
eight talons or claws, each as sharp as a needle, awaiting your attack,
and it will not be the hawk's fault if she does not maul you with them.
As for the beak, it is well-nigh sharp and strong enough to nip a piece
clean out of the back of your hand. Yet the prisoner must be got out
somehow, and moreover must be held quiet while a pair of jesses and
a hood or sock are put on. A sock is an article of unpretentious but
sterling value to the hawk-catcher. Sometimes it is not a real sock,
but a strait-waistcoat of more artificial kind made to serve as an
improved imitation of the homely article of clothing originally used
by the old falconers. But the common and unimproved sock is quite good
enough for the hawk-catcher's purpose. It is turned inside out, in
the way familiar to washerwomen, so that at the heel there is an open
end, while the toe and top of the sock form the other end. Into that
open heel is pushed the head of the captured hawk. The sock itself is
then drawn bodily on to and over the hawk's shoulders. The beak, being
hooked downwards, will not interfere with the operation. The soft
covering is pulled down right over the back, chest, and thighs of the
victim, until nothing but the tail and the tips of the wings protrude.
If it fits tolerably, the hawk will be effectually strait-waistcoated,
and may be laid down on its back like an overturned turtle. A man's
sock, big or little, fits a falcon or tiercel fairly; and a boy's or
child's sock may be used for the smaller hawks. Before the sock is used
a couple of tapes may be sewn across it, one three or four inches from
the toe, and another five or six inches farther back, so that when it
is on the ends of one tape may be tied--not tightly, of course--round
the throat of the captive hawk just in front of the shoulders, and the
ends of the other tape round the back, just above the tail. The toe of
the sock may then be cut off, so that the hawk's head is left free.
The first captive, once reduced to quiescence for the time being, will
be laid out on the floor of the hut or near it, while the falconer
returns to his watch-place. For there is no reason why he should not
effect another, or even more captures, in the same day. Climatic
influences or mere chance may have ordained that for a week or more he
should have had no chance, and yet now the hawks should come fast and
furiously to the decoy. Long-winged hawks, unlike woodcocks and many
other migratory birds, travel with the wind in their faces; and they
by no means hurry on their way, pausing, sometimes for some days at
a time, at any place where quarry is abundant, where the bathing is
good, and where, perhaps, there are other attractions which we dull,
earth-treading mortals cannot understand or appreciate. As night comes
on, the captives are carried home in their socks, and a rufter hood is
put on, after which the socks are cut off, and they are set down on a
hillock of soft turf, or, if they show no signs of violent uneasiness,
on the screen-perch, the leash having, of course, in either case been
attached and made fast. From this moment the person for whom the hawk
is intended should by rights assume the ownership and charge of her.
It would be absurd to suppose that the hawk-catcher, however good a
falconer he may be, should act as trainer too, when he has to go out on
the morrow, and perhaps for many days afterwards, to entrap other hawks.
Before bedtime, in the long evening of late autumn, a grand attempt
should be made to induce the newly-caught hawk to eat. If she was
caught early in the day, and had not already breakfasted, it is
possible that the attempt may succeed, especially if she is of a placid
and philosophic turn of mind. But do not think that success will, even
then, be easily achieved. You may very likely have to wait a long
time. Different men, of course, have different methods of persuading a
newly-caught hawk to feed; but all agree that it is a very difficult
job. Many of the books advise the drawing of meat across her feet as
she stands on the fist, and repeating this until she begins to pick
at it. Perhaps I have never sufficiently tested this plan. I do not
think I can honestly say that I have ever drawn the seductive morsel
of meat more than a hundred times successively over the feet of the
unwilling feeder. But I must confess that the process, even when
protracted to this moderate length, is a little tedious. For my own
part I have found that, if she is touched lightly on the shoulder with
a finger of the right hand, she will generally strike out with open
beak in the direction of the offending finger--not, of course, with any
idea of eating anything, or even any very defined intention of biting
her assailant, but in a mere spirit of anger and defiance. If, then,
between the moment of touching her and that when the blow with the
beak is struck you can substitute in the place of the finger a juicy
slice of raw beef, there is quite a good chance that she will seize
it. At the first trial she will not swallow it. Probably she will bate
off and make a scene. Nevertheless, a certain taste of very delectable
food will linger in her mouth, and when peace is restored she will take
note of this. At the second trial she may possibly retain the meat a
little longer, and make less ado. By and by a small scrap of it may be
torn off before she gets rid of it; and this, if it is at all sticky,
and cannot be flipped off with a shake of the head, will be swallowed.
Now, if everything is done very gently and quietly, there is a chance
that she may strike out again with some real notion that there is food
to strike at. Directly she takes the meat and
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