468 



FALCON. 



their formal training, and because they need to 

 acquire some strength ; but when they are able to 

 catch small birds, the jesses or wops of leather are 

 put round the tarsi, and a ring and cord attached, by 

 which they are confined during great part of the 

 training, and the jesses remain, in order that they 

 may be confined by these whenever it is necessary, 

 as confinement by the feet is the surest way to keep 

 them from injuring themselves or anything else. 

 The branchers are much sooner ready for putting in 

 training than the unfledged young, but the training is 

 proportionally difficult, because the others have been 

 accustomed to noise, and the sight of men and dogs, 

 during their nursery treatment. 



Falconers used to prefer nestlings when they could 

 be obtained, because their training was much more 

 sure as well as easy, and next to these they preferred 

 branchers. When none of these could be obtained, 

 then the object was to capture full-grown birds. The 

 smaller ones were obtained in common bird-nets, by 

 descending on the call birds ; and the goshawk, 

 and even the falcon were sometimes caught, but 

 much more rarely, though the latter was frequently 

 enticed by a pigeon and a tame falcon. Owls were 

 also made use of for the purpose of enticing the 

 falcons and the larger hawks into the net. The jer- 

 falcon, from its superior power and wildness, was 

 much more difficult to be taken in snares than any of 

 the others ; but then the jerfalcon was so much 

 more effective against the larger v game, and brought 

 so much higher a price, that even she was taken in 

 her fastnesses of the north, so that at one time there 

 was a regular export of jerfalcons both from Iceland 

 and from Norway. 



In the case, both of the highfliers and the low, 

 the difficulty of the training was pretty nearly in 

 proportion to the value of the bird after it was 

 trained, though the goshawk rather formed an ex- 

 ception to this, being much more docile and easily 

 managed than even the sparrow hawk. Among the 

 true falcons, the merlin was the most manageable, 

 required less training than any of the rest, and came 

 more readily at the call, neither did it so soon go 

 out of training when not properly exercised. On 

 this account, and also from the elegance of its form, 

 and the certainty of its stroke, the merlin was a great 

 favourite. The hobby, on the other hand, was a 

 stubborn little fellow, and required nearly as much 

 trouble to reclaim him, that is to make him return at 

 the call of the falconer, as any of the larger ones, 

 excepting, perhaps, the jerfalcon. 



When mature birds of the stubborn species had to 

 be trained, the first object was to reduce them low 

 enough ; and some nicety was required in order to 

 subdue the bird sufficiently, without at the same time 

 injuring its health. Low diet was one of the means 

 resorted to, the food being reduced to half the allow- 

 ance of a trained falcon, and its stimulating quality 

 diminished by steeping it in water. Aperient 

 medicines were also administered for the purpose of 

 reducing the tone of the internal part of the system, 

 and cold water was applied in order to bring down 

 the tone of the muscular system. With the jer- 

 falcon this training had generally to be continued for 

 about six weeks before the bird was sufficiently subdued, 

 he being kept blind-folded all this time by a hood. In 

 order to ascertain whether the bird was subdued or not, 

 they touched his head in various places, rubbing him 

 at the same time with a pigeon's wing in a recent 



state, and fresh with the smell of that bird and its 

 blood. If the bird bore this teasing and temptation 

 without excitement, and moved his head obedient to 

 the hand, he was considered fit for occasional ex- 

 posure to the light ; but several weeks more were 

 necessary in order to make sure of the bird's 

 obedience. When this was achieved, they then taught 

 the falcon to know and fly at the kind of game for 

 which it was trained, by dressing up lures or imita- 

 tions of the game, and placing food in the blood 

 upon them. This was accompanied by teaching the 

 bird to come back to the arm or hand of the 

 falconer, which was accomplished by jerking away 

 the food from the wire, and then giving a little food 

 on the return to the hand. It is inconceivable how 

 much care and trouble were required in order to 

 reclaim a mature female jerfalcon in this way, for it 

 was almost as much a, in the modern system of 

 military tactics, would discipline a whole regiment 

 for the field. Even after all this trouble had been 

 taken, the jerfalcon required the most watchful 

 attention, because it always retained a certain degree 

 of irritability, and therefore could be turned to proper 

 account only by a falconer who thoroughly under- 

 stood his disposition. For these reasons, even at 

 the time when the feudal system was at its height, 

 and the many were, throughout Europe, the slaves of 

 the few, and made to minister to their caprices, it 

 was not every owner of a baronial castle who could 

 afford to fly jerfalcons, and a good one was a 

 becoming present for an emperor. Matters are 

 somewhat changed in this respect now-a-days, and 

 giraffes and elephants are almost the only animals 

 deemed worthy of royal presentation. 



The peregrine falcon was reclaimed with much 

 less labour than this, and in much shorter time ; and 

 as the peregrine could be obtained in many countries 

 where the jer could not, and farther, as she was 

 much more docile and obedient to the falconer, and 

 by no means liable to lose her temper, she was the 

 falcon in most general use for high flight ; nor are 

 we sure that, for all her great power and her high 

 price, the jer was ever complimented with the name 

 of a "gentle falcon;" at all events, if she had the 

 name she had none of the reality. In point of train- 

 ing, the hobby stood nearly in the same relation to 

 the merlin that the jerfalcon did to the peregrine, 

 arid as its powers are not greater than those of the 

 merlin, it was not held in so much esteem. 



The training of low-flighted hawks was a simple 

 matter compared with that of falcons, and scarcely 

 required more days in the hands of a skilful reclaimer 

 than the jerfalcon required weeks. The goshawk 

 was the favourite, both on account of its docility 

 and its woodland habits, though probably the sparrow- 

 hawk is a bird of more spirit. 



In all cases of training, the object was to have the 

 bird in such spirit as that it would fly at its proper 

 game or quarry the instant that it was unhooded, and 

 return again to the arm of the falconer whether it 

 struck or missed its prey. In addition to this, there 

 were many qualities of a good hawk dependent on 

 the animal itself as distinguished from others of its 

 species, but it does not appear that the labours of 

 the reclaimer had much to do in the production of 

 these. The great use which was made of cold water 

 in training those birds, and also in reducing them when 

 excited, or keeping them low and even in health at 

 those times of the year when they were not used in 



