120 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



in a raking hawk. Of course, while flying her at the lure you 

 may do something towards habituating your eyess to keep up- 

 wind, by rewarding her when she stoops from there, and not 

 from the other side. So also, in actual flying, keep still, and let 

 the game lie, while she is wide ; and move on when she is in 

 her proper place. If she can get a kill or two from a pitch over 

 the falconer's head it will be better for her than any number of 

 kills made when she was waiting on wide. 



The glory of a falconer who goes in for game-hawking is 

 " a falcon towering in her pride of place " ; and her " place " is 

 some hundreds of yards above her master's head. A high pitch 

 is the beauty of a game-hawk. It is what enables her to kill, 

 and to kill well. The best game-hawks go up until they look 

 quite small in the sky. A thousand feet is often attained. 

 When a peregrine is as high as this, it matters comparatively 

 little whereabouts the game gets up. She can come down upon 

 them nearly as easily at an angle of 70° or 80°, as at an angle 

 of 90°. Sometimes even more easily. The time occupied in 

 coming down is a mere nothing compared with the time which 

 would be occupied in flying along the level to the same spot. 

 When once, therefore, you see your hawk at a good pitch, use 

 every effort to get up the game. When she sees the men 

 running she will very likely be all the more ready to keep in a 

 good place. After a week or two's practice she will know well 

 enough w^hat the whole show means, and will play her part in it 

 con aniore. 



If your hawk will not mount properly, but potters about in 

 a useless way at a mean height, you may try other plans. You 

 may call her off half a mile or so from the lee side of an open 

 moor, and, as she comes across it up-wind, let beaters from each 

 side try to drive grouse inwards towards her line of flight. If 

 you can once enable her to take a grouse there are hopes of her 

 yet. You may even fly her from the fist at a grouse if you can 

 get near enough to one to make it at all likely that she will 

 catch it. I have seen this done with a backward young falcon, 

 which would not wait on. There ensued a stern chase all along 

 the ground for at least half a mile, both birds flying at almost 

 exactly the same pace. The sight was ridiculous enough ; but 

 in the end the falcon managed to catch the grouse, and was 

 allowed to take her pleasure on it. The success, small as it 

 was, saved the hawk at anyrate from being disgusted with 

 grouse-hawking, as she would otherwise very soon have been. 

 It is wonderful what good is done to a young hawk by 

 catching a difficult quarry by her own unaided efforts. The 



