36 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



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 



