ii ROP 44.) 
A edi te rts Pee 
FOS YT. © ~~ =08 
: 
59 
lonely burn hard by, and witnessed her bathe and dry herself 
in the sun, preening her feathers to her own (and our) entire 
satisfaction, and I trust to the satisfaction of the readers 
of my tale. 
As I presume that the account of flights will be found more 
amusing, if not more interesting, than the drier details of 
training a hawk, I am induced to try to describe a flight at 
our finest bird of game—Tetrao lagopus—the well-known red 
erouse of the British Islands. This fine bird, in the practical 
absence of flights (save very occasional ones) at the heron, the 
wild duck, and the woodcock, is certainly now (in my opinion, at 
Iéast) the best flight remaining to “Modern Falconry.” A 
most sporting bird, and, like Sir John Falstaff, the cause 
of sport to others, endowed with strength, wildness, great 
speed, and endurance, fairly plentiful, prized by all (especially 
as an article of diet by the Peregrine!) and above all, to 
be found and found only on the open moor—what better 
quarry can a falconer wish? His falcon wishes for no better. 
A grouse is entirely to her mind at all times, and she does her 
very best when flying it. As long as grouse will sit to the 
point of a dog—in some few parts of Scotland for a month in 
the season; in my own case, in Northumberland, about two 
days only—(though I have known them packed and inaccessible 
on the 12th August!) we use dogs to find them, setters being 
generally preferred, though my best hawk’s dog has been a 
pointer for many years. Dogs used for this purpose, are trained 
to range out very far and wide, and to be very staunch on 
the point. I have known some, fully half an hour thus 
motionless, or perhaps lying down at last like a dropper. (In 
my young days dogs bred between pointer and setter frequently 
used to “‘ drop” on the point ; nowadays very few setters ever 
do so or “set,” and a great improvement it is.) On coming to 
a firm point, I usually turn a fine glass on the dog, and as we 
know each dog’s actions well on game, we can usually dis- 
tinguish a point at game, from one where game has only been. 
Grouse leave a strong scent, except in the middle of the day. 
The report being favourable, off goes the hood, and the hawk 
