102 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



can carry on this sport with success. Amongst them are parts 

 of the Berkshire and Wiltshire downs, and some of the South- 

 downs, though these are usually too undulating. Parts of 

 Norfolk, especially near Lakenheath, are good ; and so are 

 portions of the fen country, where there is not too much water. 

 In the North of England and in several counties in Ireland 

 there are moors and open spaces which do well. 



It must not be supposed, however, that the passage pere- 

 grine, or any other of the big long-winged hawks, any more 

 than the eyesses, take kindly to rook-flying. Some have so 

 little fancy for this unattractive quarry, that they can never by 

 any skill be induced to fly them with any zest. Generally it is 

 necessary to use either a make-hawk or bagged quarry for 

 entering the beginners. The way in which such quarry are 

 used has been sufficiently explained in the last chapter. But, 

 as everyone does not know how to catch a rook, a few hints 

 borrowed from the sister art of bird-catching may not be out of 

 place. The commonest way of entrapping a rook is to send a 

 boy up to the top of a tree in a well-frequented rookery with 

 the end of a string, with which he can make a noose or nooses, 

 and set them on the old nests to which the birds resort before 

 roosting for the night. At the moment when the noisy crowd 

 come back to the rookery and settle on their accustomed 

 perches, a simultaneous pull at several lines connected with 

 properly-laid nooses will generally secure a victim or more. 

 Another plan by which a rook is made to look even more 

 foolish is to go round with a plough in a field where rooks come 

 to pick up the worms which it turns up. The rook-catcher 

 must be provided with a number of paper hoods made like large 

 extinguishers, and these he will place upside down in the furrow 

 with a tempting bait — grain, worm, or meat — in their inside. 

 The rest of the inside of each cap is well smeared with bird- 

 lime or some other very sticky matter ; and the rook, in picking 

 at the food, may be hoped sometimes to hood himself. Then 

 while in his astonishment he struggles to get rid of this blinding 

 fool's cap, he may be picked up and carried off into captivity. 



When the newly-entered hawk has taken his bagged rook, 

 you must get up as quickly as j^ou can and make in at once. 

 Then seizing the "pelt," or dead body of the quarry, you must 

 contrive so that the hawk, instead of breaking in upon that 

 unsavoury morsel, shall proceed by mistake to begin her meal 

 upon a pigeon which you have just before killed, and which you 

 surreptitiously substitute for by holding it side by side with 

 the dead rook. The object, of course, is to induce in her lady- 



