106 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



they have this faculty everyone knows who has ever seen a 

 rook flown by a trained peregrine. Fortunate for the falconer 

 that it is so, as he can choose his own moment for the throw-off. 



If you are intending to fly a hawk for the first time at a wild 

 rook, get some other person who is out with a made hawk to be 

 also ready with her. Then, if the first chance at a rook is not 

 an easy one, let that other person throw off his hawk and keep 

 yours for a less difficult flight. Wait, if possible, until you can 

 find a quarry which is not too far off and not high in the air. 

 If you can get up within a hundred yards or so of one on the 

 ground to windward of you, so much the better. The moment 

 he jumps up, off with the hood, and with a steady movement of 

 the left arm forwards, something like that of a left-arm slow 

 bowler, launch your hawk into the wind. Use whatever cry of 

 encouragement you like, or use none at all ; at anyrate, not any 

 cry which you may have used in calling off. And if, in the 

 excitement of the moment you should not throw away the 

 hood, but stuff it into your pouch or pocket, that will also be 

 satisfactory. If you drop it you are not likely to find it on the 

 open down without some hours' search, if at all. Such presence 

 of mind is, however, I am aware, rather too great to expect. 



A rook with any self-respect about him will begin to mount 

 as soon as he is aware that he is being pursued. And of this fact 

 he will not be long in ignorance. Seldom does a trained hawk 

 make half a dozen strokes of her wing before the quarry espies 

 her and knows exactly what she means. With this knowledge 

 the black-a-moor of the air w^akes up, and then, if never before, 

 he is on his mettle. Few people know how a rook can fly until 

 they have seen him in front of a peregrine which means business. 

 His wings are broad and strong, and not much worse shaped 

 than a hawk's. His muscles are good ; and by reason of much 

 daily exercise in all weathers he is in good condition — better 

 far, perhaps, than your passage hawk, which was cooped up 

 inactive for weeks, and only during the last fortnight or so has 

 had a modicum of exercise while flying to the lure. The two 

 birds will breast the wind as they mount ; but not necessarily 

 taking the same line. Sometimes the two lines will diverge so 

 much that from your point of view behind, the birds seem to be 

 flying away from one another. Generally speaking, the better 

 the hawk the less slavishly will she follow the course taken by 

 the quarry. She flies " with her head," and, trusting for victory 

 to the long, powerful stoop, concentrates her efforts on attaining 

 to a position from which she can deliver it to best advantage. 

 Thus if, the wind being north, and the safest shelter west, the 



