E. B. Michell

“ It is argued that a hawk, while so pegged out, is breathing the fresh air and getting manned, if there are, as there should be, people passing to and fro before her eyes. But, on the other hand, she is all the time plagued by a feeling of discomfort and discontent, which cannot be good for her. Her position is not natural to her. It is not the one she would choose of her own accord. Every bird which flits across within her field of view, every cloud which passes over head, almost every breeze which whispers in the tree-tops, suggests to her a longing to take flight. ”

“ It would be rather a misnomer to call soaring a vice. This, which is one of the most beautiful accomplishments of the wild falcon, is the natural mode of taking daily exercise. To see it in perfection, look at a wild peregrine or a wild hobby—you have there what enthusiasts describe as the poetry of motion. All hawks, eagles and vultures soar by nature. It is their way of stretching their wings, and of taking the air where it is cool and fresh. Kestrels do a sort of humble soaring in search of their food, and hobbies actually feed themselves, like swifts, on the wing. ”

“ I have known a merlin fly her best at a mounting lark, take it after a hard flight, and descend with it to a heap of stones. Lighting a cigar, and sitting down beside a neighbouring rick to wait for her to break in, I have seen her presently go off unconcernedly to another resting-place with nothing in her feet, and, walking up to the heap of stones, have found the lark lying there, dead and unplucked. The hawk must have been flying almost uniquely out of love for the sport, and not with a view to satisfying any hunger which she felt at the time ”

“ Continue feeding them at the rate they have been accustomed to, and you will lose patience before you can bring them under any sort of control. In fact, you will not do so at all. Yet I do not mean that they should be made thin. There is, it is true, no longer any fear of hunger-traces, but a thin hawk is a weak hawk, and sometimes even a spoilt hawk. Her small feathers lose their gloss; her flight feathers grow weak and brittle, and are ready to break on slight provocation; her nares lose colour, and begin to harbour mites. In short, a thin hawk is an abomination and a disgrace. ”

“ How often, in far northern lands, has she from above the highest mountains come down like a thunderbolt upon the fast-flying ptarmigan or shifty rock-pigeon? Does she not know that it is this altitude which gives power and success? When she has begun killing grouse she will soon enter into the spirit of the thing. Every bird—and a hawk not least—knows that what has happened once or twice may happen again. She was thrown off; she saw no lure, no rook. ”

“ As you walk about, pretending to look at anything rather than her, she is all the time wondering whether your intentions are honourable or the reverse. Instinct tells her that they are base. Her previous experience, on the other hand, is reassuring to her. Your attitude, as you stroll about, is indicative of no sinister design. “When in doubt do nothing,” is a hawk’s maxim, as well as a diplomatist’s. Meanwhile there is the quarry to be plumed. So with many lookings round, and many pauses, and with a rather misdoubting mind, she falls to at the work of picking off the feathers. ”

“ It requires some faith to believe when the wild-caught sparrow-hawk is first taken in hand that she will ever do this. Nothing will seem much more unlikely than that this fierce, restless creature, a feathered termagant, would ever so lay aside her innate wildness as to come contentedly out of the free air, and, disdaining all other resting-places, take perch by preference on the hand of her once detested captor. Yet so it is. Goshawks and sparrow-hawks can all be brought to come habitually to the fist, and remain there willingly at all times except when there is quarry to be pursued. ”

“ If the wild hawk gets wet, or feels cold at midnight, she has only the elements or herself to blame. If the trained hawk suffers, will she not blame the man who tied her down in a position where she could not escape from these discomforts? A perfectly clean and well-aired hawk-house is, to my mind, as good a place for hawks to sleep in as the finest lawn on the fairest night of the year. What good does a hawk get from bating at the block on to the wet grass from 3 or 4 a.m. till the falconer appears? ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is a warm still day, and we go straight to the big meadow, where in the bottom hedge we put out a thrush. Ruby is off the fist like lightning, and gains fast on the quarry. Just as he turns to get into the hedge the hawk makes a dash, which very nearly succeeds, but the thrush has just managed to swerve out of the way, and, running along and through the hedge, escapes on the other side, while Ruby betakes herself to a tree hard by. Before she is called down a blackbird is sighted near the same tree, and we form a line so as to drive him towards the hawk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At last, however, we get a bit of luck, which indeed makes it rather a red-letter day for Lady Macbeth, for as we beat along one of the least likely-looking hedge-rows, more for the sake of doing the proper thing than with a hope of finding anything, there is a huge flurry and bustle almost under the feet of our falconer, and up gets a single partridge, beating the air noisily with broad, round wings as he gets clear of the overgrown ditch. When he is once fairly on the wing he will soon put on a pace nearly, if not quite, equal to any that our hawk can attain to. ”

“ There is a power and ease of motion about a full-fleshed hawk, a force in her stoop, and a sort of pride about her every movement, which one looks for in vain in a hawk in poor condition. Thin hawks fly in a laboured way against a strong wind, instead of facing it easily and appearing to rejoice in their victory over it, utilising its very opposition to lift them up, and sailing on it like a stiff yacht in a gale. Weak flying may result from overfeeding as well as underfeeding. ”

“ Liberty often acts as a wonderful stimulant to a trained hawk’s energies. The same falcon which has persistently refused rooks, and can seldom score off a partridge, will perhaps after twenty-four hours’ fasting in the tree-tops bowl over with alacrity whichever of these quarries first offers her a chance, and then, having been reduced again into bondage, relapse into the same indifference, and refuse to be induced by any amount either of feeding up or starving to fly a yard after one or the other. ”

“ To strike a hawk, or rate her, is to forfeit at once her respect, and what may be called her affection. A dog is a slave by immemorial habit. He knows intuitively that he is dependent upon man as a master. But the hawk, if she is worth her salt, knows nothing of the kind. Turn her loose, and instead of starving or begging, like the lost dog, she will well shift for herself. She looks upon man as an ally rather than a master. She likes to be treated as a friend and equal, rather than as a dependant and a servant. ”

“ Who has not seen one rook chasing another, either in sport or in a petulant humour, and the fugitive evidently enjoying the fun of throwing out his persecutor? In the tropics there is nothing that a crow likes better than stooping at kites; and nothing that the kite takes greater pride in than showing how easily he can elude the shots so made at him. I have seen pigeons, when a slow or lazy peregrine is in the air, deliberately hang about within reach of her for the express purpose of enjoying the amusement of successfully shifting when she makes a dash for them. ”

“ When a hawk in stretching her wings while standing on the block raises them far above her head, or when, having bated off, she hangs down from the fist, and, flopping with her wings, brings them so near together behind her that they seem almost about to touch, be sure that that hawk will fly better than one which carries her wings back to about a level with her back only. It is in stooping at the lure that you can judge best as to the merits of rook-hawks or lark-hawks, while, of course, those of game-hawks and duck-hawks are best tested by merely waiting on. ”

“ The young falconer should endeavour from the first to keep his charges in such condition that they will always come to the lure. If, at the same time, they are keen enough to do this and high-fed enough to do themselves justice in a hard flight, they may be called really well trained. Here lies the real difficulty of hawking—to strike the balance justly between too servile obedience and too disdainful independence. Every day, and with every hawk, whether eyess or passager, the falconer is confronted with it, only in the case of passagers it is naturally more obvious. ”

“ John Barr was flying a ger-tiercel at a pigeon on Epsom Downs, not far from Tattenham Corner. But the hawk was no match for the pigeon, which evaded all his stoops. Instead, however, of making off and thanking his lucky stars, this over-vain bird stayed fooling around. Confident that the ger would not or could not catch him, he sailed about, as if “chaffing” the big hawk and challenging him to do his worst. At this moment an amateur falconer came on the Downs by the Grand Stand, carrying a falcon (peregrine) of by no means first-rate powers, but keen to fly, and a good waiter on. ”

“ The glory of a falconer who goes in for game-hawking is “a falcon towering in her pride of place”; and her “place” is some hundreds of yards above her master’s head. A high pitch is the beauty of a game-hawk. It is what enables her to kill, and to kill well. The best game-hawks go up until they look quite small in the sky. A thousand feet is often attained. When a peregrine is as high as this, it matters comparatively little whereabouts the game gets up. She can come down upon them nearly as easily at an angle of 70° or 80°, as at an angle of 90°. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If for any reason you wish your hawk to eat her quarry where she has killed, attach the leash to her jesses and to a peg in the ground, or to a field-block, leaving a man to watch her and keep a sharp look-out against intruders. Although in the very open country, where alone the long-winged hawks ought to be flown, there are not many interlopers in the shape of stray dogs or tourists, yet it is wonderful how, with a little bad luck at his heels, the falconer may be annoyed by unexpected intruders. ”

“ Only when, after assuming the adult plumage, she has kept herself through the whole of a second winter is she called upon to undertake the arduous task of feeding not only herself, but also two or three ravenous and helpless youngsters. The first moult of the young hawk is also arranged to take place at that time of year when it is least difficult for her to find her own living. While the big feathers of her nestling plumage are falling out and being slowly replaced by new ones, the bird world is full of newly-fledged quarry, or at least of quarry which are not yet very strong upon the wing. ”

“ He must be a good judge of the characters of animals, and of their moods and fancies, for there is as much difference in the dispositions of hawks as of human beings, and no two of them, except by a rare accident, can be treated successfully in exactly the same way. His sight and hearing must be good, for much depends upon his ability to keep a long flight in view, and to distinguish the sound of a hawk’s bell in a high wind, amidst the rustle of leaves and grass, the murmur of a stream, or the pattering of rain. ”

“ What good can a passage hawk possibly get from standing as a prisoner on a block of wood, tempted continually to jump off, and jerked back as often as she does so by a rude pull on to a damp plot of grass? The fashion now so prevalent of pegging hawks out on the lawn by themselves seems to me, if the truth is to be told, to have originated in the laziness of the falconer or his subordinates. It is manifestly much easier and simpler to tie a hawk to a block, than to roam about with her on the fist. ”

“ 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. ”