EXTEACT FROM BERT. 291 



ing instructions. Bert's treatise on hawking, published 

 in 1619, has the following: — 



" I have heard of some who have watched, and kept 

 their hawks awake seven nights, and as many days, yet 

 they would be wild, rammish, and disorderly." This 

 gentleman was remarkable for the training of his hawks, 

 and as a proof of it, he sold a simple goshawk and 

 tiercel of his training for one hundred merks. From his 

 own account, the greatest part of his time, almost the 

 whole of it, except when he slept, must have been occu- 

 pied with his birds. " There cannot," he says, " be too 

 much familiarity between a man and his hawks." No- 

 thing familiarises a hawk more than tempting her from 

 the perch to the hand, by offering her some favourite 

 food, as the stump or pinion of* a fowl. By persevering 

 in this treatment, the wildest goshawk may be taught to 

 come readily to the fist when held out to her, and from 

 almost any reasonable distance. Sir John Sebright 

 appears to value very little the services of the goshawk 

 as regards falconry. He allows that they may be em- 

 ployed against landrails and pheasants, but for par- 

 tridges he considers them too slack mettled to fly with 

 keenness at any, and that most, except very young birds, 

 will distance them, but he acknowledges that the very 

 worst will take rabbits and hares. One great point in 

 its favour, however, is that it may be made use of in a 

 thickly enclosed country, where it would be useless to 

 attempt flying the peregrine. The male of this hawk is 

 decidedly more active on the wing than the female. The 

 goshawk has this advantage, that it will thrive upon any 

 coarse food, as also the power of flying repeatedly during 

 the day. 



