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occasion, no cover being nigh, I really thought we should soon 
have had to boast of that all but impossible feat—the capture 
of a wild merlin bya tame falcon! Three times did the tiercel’s 
stoop beat the merlin down, on his way to a distant hedge—his 
only hope. I was mounted, and saw it well. The last of the 
three stoops, sent the sweet little ladies’ hawk rolling on the 
dusty clods, and had I but been up, he would never have got 
into the hedge a foot in front of our “ Lundy” as he contrived 
to do. 
Pulling out the leaden weight attached by a rope to the 
horse’s bit from its pistol holster above my left knee, which all 
falconers use, and dropping it on the ground, I soon had the 
merlin out, to be again instantly dashed into the hedge by the 
tiercel. Time after time did I do this, till my men ran up, and 
if we could then have kept our heads cool, the merlin must 
have been ours (or “ Lundy’s”), for the hedge ended on the 
open down, and once driven out there, the who-hoop would soon 
have sounded for him, as it has for so many a magpie under the 
self-same conditions! Alas (for us) we drove the merlin the 
wrong way! towards a building and yard, ornamented—but not 
then in owr eyes—by a fine walnut tree. The ill-used merlin 
just managed to get from the end of the hedge into the middle 
of the walnut tree, which we were all far too done, to climb. 
Needless to say, he was utterly indifferent to shouts, stones, 
and sticks, as well he might be. And there we left him, quit 
for the fright; for of course I turned a deaf ear to the vile 
proposition of the bailiff, to lend me his gun. This proposition 
seemed awful to me, and strangely enough, perhaps, for we had 
but just before, been moving heaven and earth, to catch the said 
merlin, by foot of another falcon! And there we will leave 
“ Lundy,” whose performances as a game hawk I have seldom 
seen surpassed. I saw him in Ireland once strike down no less 
than three grouse out of one covey, at one time, and found him 
with the third in his foot, and he wound up his day by joining 
a wild female peregrine, and going three or four miles away 
seaward with her. My man got him down to a pigeon eventu- 
ally, and brought him home. If I say that I have many times 
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