96 THE FEATIIEUEli TltlliES. 



The modes adopted for the taking and training of falcons are not a httle remarkaljle, and 

 a sketch of them, now falUng into disuse, cannot fail to be interesting. AMien it is pos- 

 sible to capture the young ones, -while as yet they are merely covered -with down, their 

 education is comparatively easy. They have little bells attached to their feet, and are 

 placed on what is termed an eyrie. This, for a liird of high flight, is a cask staved at 

 one end, rested on the side, lined with straw, and placed either on a low wall, or a hil- 

 lock of earth, witliin reach of the master, with the opening turned towards the east. 

 For a bird of low flight, the falconers use a kind of hut of twisted straw, set upon a tree 

 of no great height, and within reach of the hand. Certain planks are placed near the 

 openings of the hut or the cask, on which the birds perform their first exercises, and 

 receive their food. 



The food consists of beef and mutton, from which the fat and membi-aneous parts have 

 been withdrawn, and which is cut into slender and oblong pieces. This aliment is given 

 daily at seven in the morning and five in the evening, and the bird is excited to partake 

 of it by an uniform cry, which he soon learns to recognise. On these planks, wliich 

 serve as a table, they always place the food of the high-flying birds, but for the others it 

 is set on the ground, as soon as they are strong enough to descend and re-ascend. The 

 strength of both kinds is gradually exercised. They first reach the places wluch are 

 near them by jumps, and then by a heavy sort of flying. 



At six weeks old they can catch bats, swallows, and other creatures of little strength ; 

 as these come near them they are sure to become their victims. They lose their liberty 

 at this period, being taken in snares or nets, and covered with a thick cloth, that they 

 may be chained down in darkness. Jesses are now attached to the tarsi ; manacles, in 

 fact, of supple leather, to which is fastened a ring and a cord, so that the birds may be 

 fixed on a log of wood on a level with the ground, surrounded with straw. Their heads 

 are also covered with a hood, which hinders them from seeing, while it allows them to eat. 

 The training is then commenced. 



The birds which are taken after they have left the nest are more difficult to train than 

 these, though less so than adults, with which, however, falconers must content themselves 

 when they can get no others. These are taken in different ways. 



The hawk, the martm, and the hobby, are taken in projecting nets, laid as if for larks. 

 They immediately descend on the " calling birds," which are placed in the centre. 

 Falcons and goshawks are sometimes taken in the same manner ; but as this hapjiens 

 only when the birds are very hungry, and in the immediate neighbourhood, the fowler, 

 desirous of takmg them, provides himself with a tame shrike attached by a buckle. 



This bird, which recognises from a gi'eat distance the various accipifres hovering on 

 high, and is but slightly agitated when he perceives a buzzard, rushes into the hunter's 

 lodge when he descries a falcon. The hunter then slips a pigeon under his net, also held 

 by a long cord, to leave him the power of fl\ittering and exciting the falcon, which, when 

 he attacks his prey bitterly, suffers himself to be drawn after it within the fall of the 

 net. Should this plan not succeed, the fowler takes a tame falcon, which age and infir- 

 mity have rendered useless, and attaches it to the end of a long and ]iliant twig, by the 

 feet, and fixes the other end of the twig in the groinid. A cord, beginning from the point 

 where the bird is retained, passes through the jmllev which occujiies the centre of the 

 nets. The hunter, who holds the extremity of it in his box, on a signal given by the 

 shnke, draws it, and the twig bending, obliges the falcon to extend its wings as if about 

 t<) pounce on a prey. 'J"he wihl bird IIk'Ii directly )>reei|)itates himself on t]u> other, Mn<l 

 falls \uU) the' snare. 



