218 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



they suppose they can tackle, from a wood-pigeon to a wren ; 

 and the short-winged hawks are, of course, almost always ready 

 for any bloodthirsty adventure. 



Fortunately stray hawks, at least of the long-winged kinds, 

 do not usually betake themselves to thick places where they 

 cannot easily be seen. In open countries, where alone they 

 should be flown, there is no great choice for them of convenient 

 perching-places. Probably the most likely of all stations for 

 them to take up are the tops of ricks ; and here a peregrine, 

 or even a merlin, can be distinguished at a great distance by a 

 pair of good field-glasses. As a rule, the best hawks like the 

 highest perches, where they can command, as from a watch- 

 tower, the farthest view of the country over which they hope for 

 a chance flight. A hawk which takes perch on low railings or 

 on the ground is not usually much of a performer. Some of 

 these are very fond of perching on fallow-fields, where it is almost 

 impossible for an unpractised eye to distinguish their plumage 

 against the colour of the ground. A knowledge of their ways 

 will make the falconer aware that in such a field, however 

 apparently flat, there will be either mounds or small peaks and 

 projections of earth where clods have been unevenly turned up, 

 which a hawk is sure to choose as a resting-place in preference 

 to the surrounding ground for some distance on every side. 

 The predilections of each of his hawks for particular kinds of 

 perching-places will generally have been noted to some extent 

 by the falconer, who will naturally look for each of them on the 

 sort of stand which he knows that she most often prefers. Trees, 

 while still leafy, are some of the worst places in which to have 

 to search, and of course they are very common resorts. A lost 

 hawk may be watching her pursuers as unseen as King Charles 

 in the oak, and not deigning to come down to the most enticing 

 dead lure, until, having cast, she feels an inclination to do so. 



When a lost hawk is not recovered early in the morning a 

 very good plan is to fly another, either at the lure or at some 

 quarry, in the neighbourhood of the place where the loss occurred, 

 or where you have ascertained that the truant was last seen. 

 And the higher the decoy hawk can be induced to go the more 

 chance will there naturally be that the other may come up and 

 join her. Whenever one hawk is on the wing for any length of 

 time, there is a good chance that every other hawk within about 

 a mile will catch sight of her, and not a bad chance that the 

 other may come up. In case of a high ringing flight, wild hawks 

 will come up from much farther than a mile. And lost hawks 



