128 HAWKING. 



speedily have killed it, if the lure had not been thrown in her 

 way.* 



It will be observed that in the above instances the Hawks 

 either obeyed the call, or were secured by their keepers on 

 the capture of the game ; but this does not always follow, and 

 they are occasionally lost ; of which there is a curious proof in 

 a Hawk having been taken some years ago, in the month of 

 August, with bells on its thighs and a silver ring to its leg 

 with the owner's name engraved thereon. It flew on board 

 a vessel bound from North Shields to Quebec, in latitude 

 44°, longitude 25 west, nearly midway between the coasts of 

 Europe and America, and died after being on board twenty days. 

 From the inscription on its silver ring, this bird must probably 

 have escaped from England or Ireland, from the nearest point 

 of which it was when taken, about 700 miles. Knowing as 

 we do the speed of a bird's flight, this distance appears less 

 extraordinary, and might have occupied but a short time in its 

 accomplishment. For instance, the bird might have taken its 

 departure from the nearest land, and with ease, and by no 

 means at its extreme speed, have reached the vessel in six or 

 seven hours ; and as it lived for twenty days on board, we 

 have no grounds for believing that it had suffered from exces- 

 sive fatigue or hunger during its flight. 



All Hawks, however, do not fly at their game with an inten- 

 tion of taking it in the air, while others, so far from avoiding 

 the head, make it their particular point of attack, as the 

 Kestrel, which was invariably observed by a person who kept 

 one for some time to crush the head of the animal given it for 

 food, with its beak, before it began to devour it. 



Those who are in the habit of catching Hawks avail them- 

 selves of their knowledge of the different ways in which they 

 provide themselves with food in order to capture them; a 

 description of a few of these modes may be useful to some of 

 our readers. The manner of catching the celebrated Icelandic 

 Falcons was thus. So anxious were the inhabitants to secure 

 them, that almost every nest was known, and the Falcon- 

 * Naturalist's Magazine. 



