148 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



a rook-hawk, and may afford a very good flight. Pheasants, of 

 course, will be caught by a falcon when they get up in open 

 ground. Colonel Sanford knocked down a full-grown pheasant 

 with a tiercel ; but the little hawk could not hold him on the 

 ground. 



Woodcocks have been flown with a great deal of success 

 in comparatively recent times, and have shown very excellent 

 sport, requiring quite a first-rate peregrine to take them well, 

 and that usually after a long and often high flight. Between 

 1823 and 1833 Mr. John Sinclair flew woodcocks regularly in 

 Scotland, and captured in one season as many as fifty-seven 

 with a falcon. Before this the Renfrewshire Subscription Club 

 did good execution with the quarry, and Colonel Thornton also 

 had some splendid flights. Sir Thomas Brown (cited by Hart- 

 ing, Bibl. Ace. p. 27) says that a hawk, probably a peregrine, 

 made a flight at a woodcock nearly thirty miles in one hour. 

 The mention of so long a time suggests the inference that the 

 quarry " put in " several times, and was routed out. A famous 

 account is extant in print of a woodcock very well killed after 

 an unusually high flight by one of Major Fisher's peregrines. 



Snipe are occasionally taken by peregrines that happen to 

 be waiting on when they rise. The first stoop is, of course, 

 dangerous for the snipe, but if he eludes that, a cast of the best 

 tiercels will hardly catch him. I have seen a female shaheen 

 hawking at snipe for her own pleasure, and saw her knock one 

 down very close to me in the long grass, but she could not find 

 it. Waiting for me to serve her, she remained for a while very 

 near over my head, and even took a dead snipe which I threw 

 up for her, but finding it cold dropped it after a yard or two's 

 flying. Mr. St. Quintin once flew a snipe hard with a good 

 game-tiercel of his, which bested it in the air, but it got off by 

 means of continually putting in to a deep ditch. 



Many other birds are taken occasionally by peregrines when 

 they get up under the hawk, either while waiting on or coming 

 back from an unsuccessful flight. 1 saw a male kestrel taken 

 in this way — and very easily too — by an eyess game-tiercel of 

 Major Fisher's. Larks, too, are now and then taken when the 

 dog stands to them, and they are put up. Major Fisher had 

 a long flight once with a peregrine at a wild merlin, which was 

 very hard pressed, and at last put in to a thick hedge. 



In some Oriental countries peregrines are commonly flown 

 at hares ; but the sport is not one which would ever be popular 

 in highly civilised countries, for the falcon, or falcons, do not 

 bind to the animal like a goshawk. They deliver repeated 



