SHORT WINGED HAWKS. 289 



employed in a sport called " daring,''' by which par- 

 tridges, quails, snipes, larks, &c., are taken. The hobby 

 being cast off, so alarms the birds that they will suffer 

 a net to be drawn over them sooner than rise. Both 

 the hobby and the merlin breed in England, although it 

 is asserted by some naturalists that they are passage 

 hawks. 



Teainixg of Short Winged Hawks. 



Training of the goshawk may be considered the head 

 of the short winged hawks, and like the long winged, 

 may be taken from the nest, or be procured by netting 

 or trapping, when full gi'own, the latter being generally 

 preferred. Our present subject is a hawk of the fist, and 

 is consequently not to be hooded only when travelling, 

 or during its initiating, to keep her quiet. About the 

 fifth or sixth day the hood may be finally removed, as 

 many of these birds soon become reconciled to confine- 

 ment, and will readily take food from the hand. Gros- 

 hawks, and other short \vinged kinds, rest on a perch 

 formed from a pole, about an inch and a half in diameter, 

 which Sir John Sebright recommends to be placed hori- 

 zontally at four feet from the ground, imder a tree in 

 fine weather, and to be placed under shelter when it is 

 foul. A piece of woollen cloth* or matting should be 



* With regard to the -woollen cloth, a French author, Mods. D'Es- 

 panon, -who -wrote on falconrj^ in 1599, mentions a curious circumstance 

 of a hawk that had s-wallo-wed a piece of the woollen covering. He says : 

 " The bird had a s-welling in his crop as big as a hen's, and -was given 

 me by a person -who thought it -would not live, having remained in this 

 state from July to March. I was resolved to spare no pains in the 

 endeavour to recover him. The aceumidation had become so lai^e and 

 hard that he covdd not throw it up, and every morning at feeding time he 

 suifered great pain. I had tried pills of musk, hiera, aloes, -vitriol, alum, 



