68 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



Bad temper is a nuisance, no doubt, and a difficulty. But want 

 of speed is worse. It is incurably destructive of good sport. 

 And here, speaking of the relative speeds of hawks at hack, I 

 will ask leave to relate two anecdotes. Queen, a powerful and 

 speedy, but not very brilliant flier, went off with a rabbit's head, 

 pursued by her sister and two brothers. Winding about along 

 the side of a long hedge, now one side and now the other, she 

 evaded all their stoops, and, after reaching the end of the hedge, 

 where there were some elms and oaks, dodged rapidly in and out 

 among them, loaded as she was, throwing out all the pursuers, 

 and finally conveying her booty to a safe corner, where she 

 discussed it all by herself in peace. 



On his eleventh day of hack, Jubilee, the male merlin already 

 referred to, was sitting with his two sisters and one brother in 

 the branches of a fallen tree in the hack field, under which I 

 was seated, garnishing the lures for their delectation a little later 

 on. Suddenly the little hawk started at his best pace right 

 down the field. I supposed that he was after some blackbird 

 in the far hedge. But before reaching it he turned, and began 

 mounting as he came back towards me. I looked round, and for 

 the first time saw that a wild kestrel had come over into the 

 field, and was dodging the stoops made at him by the remain- 

 ing merlins. Now this kestrel was one of a brood which had 

 been flying at hack under their parents' care in a neighbouring 

 field. They were already strong on the wing before the merlins 

 were turned out ; and I had been rather fearing, when I dis- 

 covered their near presence, that they might do the young 

 merlins a bad turn. No encounter had, however, as yet occurred 

 between the two families. The kestrel had at first little diffi- 

 culty in eluding the stoops of the three merlins, who seemed 

 not much in earnest. But when Jubilee came over, at some 

 height in the air, there was a different tale to tell. With his first 

 stoop he made the wild hawk cry out ; at the second he almost 

 feathered him, and made him shuffle off to the orchard near 

 at hand, where, swirling round the tree-trunks, he threw out 

 his assailant, and made off to a tall elm. Here, no doubt, he 

 fancied he was safe, especially as the other hawks, on Jubilee's 

 appearance, tailed off But not a bit of it. Throwing himself 

 well up above the elm, the little jack dashed down at the enemy 

 in the tree, dislodged him, and with a back-handed stoop drove 

 him down to the ground, hunted him all across a meadow, 

 grazing him at every shot he made, and lost him in a big 

 orchard farther on. The pace of the wild hawk was very poor 

 in comparison with that of this half-tame lure-hacked merlin. 



