280 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



or hawk. Yet they undoubtedly came down here, and never 

 came out again. Outside, they could have been seen anywhere 

 for half a mile. At last I saw that there was a small pane of 

 glass gone in one of the downstair windows. Through that 

 opening I looked ; and there sat my lady, with a fluffy heap 

 round her feet. So far, so good. But the room was full of bees, 

 some dead, and some alive ! What was to be done ? 



Colonel Sanford owned, hacked, and trained a very first-rate 

 merlin called Orkney, which killed no less than ten larks in 

 a single day in single flights, thus surpassing Queen, which 

 took nine in single flights and one in double. This Orkney, 

 after a very long flight, put a lark into a flock of sheep. But 

 she marked the exact spot, underneath a sheep, where the 

 fugitive stopped, and, taking perch on a neighbouring wether, 

 kept her eye on the place. The sheep moved on, leaving the 

 ground clear ; and Orkney jumped as nearly as she could guess 

 on the right spot. She failed, however, to grab the lark, which 

 got up again and promptly took refuge under another sheep. 

 Again the little hawk took stand on the next bleater, marking 

 still more carefully the hiding-place of the quarry. Again the 

 animals walked on, and this time perseverance was rewarded, 

 and the lark was carried in triumph from the woolly protectors 

 which had so nearly saved him. The same hawk once drove a 

 lark into a small hole where she could see nothing of him but 

 the tail. After some reflection she put in her beak and grasped 

 steadily the feathers of the tail. Then with an unhurried pull 

 she drew him far enough out of the hole to be able to get at 

 him with her foot. 



The best hawk I ever had was the merlin Eva. She was 

 never beaten in fair flight by any lark during the whole of the 

 moulting season ; and she killed one (fully moulted, of course) 

 as late as 7th November. One day she mounted an immense 

 height after a ringing lark, bested him, and had had three shots, 

 when a wild merlin joined in. After this the two hawks flew 

 in concert just as if they had been trained in the same stable. 

 Stoop for stoop, in regular alternations, they worked this plucky 

 lark down by a few yards at each shift, neither I nor James Ret- 

 ford, who was running with me, being able to distinguish which 

 was which. At last, when the lark had been driven down to 

 within about 300 feet of the ground, there were two fine stoops 

 in quick succession, the second of which was fatal. " Which is 

 it ? " I gasped, inquiring of the experienced falconer. " The wild 

 one," I think, he answered, sinking down breathless on the 



