74 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



tighten the line D, and pull the net over hawk and pigeon. 

 All that remains now for the falconer to do is (9) to make fast 

 the end of the line D round a peg fixed in the hut for that 

 purpose, and then (10) to run out, with his best leg foremost, 

 and take the captive out of the net. 



The reader may think this rather a needlessly elaborate and 

 complicated device ; but it is a very sure one, when the operator 

 does not bungle. It has stood the test of many centuries, and 

 is as good now as it was in the days of Alfred the Great. 

 There is no doubt that by means of such an apparatus — slightly 

 simplified, perhaps — wild peregrines might be taken on the 

 Wiltshire and Berkshire downs. Lord Lilford once had a hut 

 or huts out in England with some success, A similar apparatus, 

 with a less elaborate hiding-place, would enable keepers or 

 shepherds to catch many a sparrow-hawk and some merlins. 

 For the former there is almost always a good demand. So far 

 is it from being true, as many books assert, that "sparrow- 

 hawks are easy to procure," there are always half a dozen 

 falconers in England who are vainly wishing that they could 

 lay hands on one. 



To extract a wild hawk of any kind, but especially a ger, 

 peregrine, or goshawk, from the bow-net is sometimes no 

 laughing matter. To set about it with thickly-gloved hands 

 involves much awkwardness, and is not unlikely, in the case 

 of an inexperienced man, to end in the loss of the hawk. There 

 is also the danger of breaking feathers, or even a bone in the 

 wing or leg. On the other hand, to go to work with even one 

 hand ungloved exposes you, unless you are adroit beyond the 

 average of human beings, to some particularly painful punctures 

 and gashes. There are eight talons or claws, each as sharp as 

 a needle, awaiting your attack, and it will not be the hawk's 

 fault if she does not maul you w^ith them. As for the beak, it is 

 well-nigh sharp and strong enough to nip a piece clean out of 

 the back of your hand. Yet the prisoner must be got out 

 somehow, and moreover must be held quiet while a pair of 

 jesses and a hood or sock are put on. A sock is an article of 

 unpretentious but sterling value to the hawk-catcher. Some- 

 times it is not a real sock, but a strait-waistcoat of more 

 artificial kind made to serve as an improved imitation of the 

 homely article of clothing originally used by the old falconers. 

 But the common and unimproved sock is quite good enough 

 for the hawk-catcher's purpose. It is turned inside out, in the 

 way familiar to washerwomen, so that at the heel there is an 

 open end, while the toe and top of the sock form the other end. 



