144 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



Club in Holland.^ I have talked with Mr. Adrian Mollen, the 

 falconer of that club, and heard from him that the sport differed 

 in no respect from rook-hawking, except that the heron was 

 always flown " on passage," when already high in the air, and 

 that two passage falcons were flown together. He told me 

 that he had very seldom found any real difficulty in entering a 

 passage falcon, and never lost one of his own training by any 

 accident except once, when the mischief arose in a strange way. 

 The hawks were mounting, when the heron disgorged a good- 

 sized fish. At this one of his falcons stooped as it fell, took it, 

 and made off to an inaccessible place, where she devoured 

 almost the whole of it, and afterwards died of indigestion. In 

 India heron-hawking is still practised, but there is not the same 

 enthusiasm about it as there was in Europe some centuries ago, 

 or in the days of the Loo Club. 



A much more favourite and exciting sport in India and 

 other parts of Asia is the flight at kites. In England the fork- 

 tailed kite was flown from very early times, and it is not a 

 century ago since one afforded a flight six miles in length in 

 the Eastern Counties. For this very fine flier gers were com- 

 monly used in the Middle Ages ; and the kite was enticed 

 within range by turning out an owl with a fox's brush tied to its 

 feet. In India the Brahminy kite and the brown kite are both 

 very common, and are taken with sakers, as well as peregrines, 

 and occasionally by shaheens. I hear that eyess sakers are 

 preferred, and that they are never allowed to fly any other 

 quarry until they are slipped first at bagged kites. It is also 

 necessary to make sure that the hawk shall never taste the flesh 

 of the kite when taken ; as if once this has occurred the saker is 

 useless ever afterwards for this quarry. It appears, however, 

 that not many sakers are good enough to take the kite, even 

 when physicked and flown two together ; and when they have 

 been made to it they command a very high price. 



We must also now go to foreign countries, and especially to 

 India, to see duck-hawking, which was formerly so favourite a 

 sport in the British Islands. Duck are not now plentiful enough 

 in England to induce one to keep a hawk for them alone, 

 although occasionally one is taken by a game-hawk during the 

 season. Hawking " at the brook," as it was called, was con- 

 ducted on very much the same principles as game-hawking in 



^ This famous society was started by the Duke of Leeds and Mr. Ne\vcome,with 

 the assistance of the Dutch falconer Bots, and had as its president Prince Alex- 

 ander of the Netherlands. In 1843, with forty falcons it took about two hundred 

 herons, almost all of which were released with rings round their legs. 



