[o6 SHOOTING 7 HE HARE 



covert, not indeed without sustaining a shrewd buffet 

 or two, or perchance getting one of her ears slit, but 

 still alive and safe. Ofttimes she will turn to meet the 

 stoop, and, bounding four or five feet into the air, 

 allow the falcon to pass below her, or, by thus spring- 

 ing to meet her, baffle the stoop altogether. Or if a 

 rut or bramble brake afford the scantiest concealment, 

 she may squat therein and is safe, for the long-winged 

 hawks will not pounce upon and seize their quarry 

 thus motionless on the ground. To prevent this, it 

 was in old times the custom to run, with the haw^k, a 

 slow lurcher, and it was probably to his efforts that 

 the hare succumbed after being knocked about by 

 the hawk. 



I have myself in recent years seen even a pere- 

 grine stoop at a brown haie and knock her head 

 over heels as though shot, while on three or four 

 different occasions the blue hare has been fairly killed 

 by the trained peregrine, just as the brown hare has 

 been taken by the gerfalcon. An account of these 

 remarkable flights will be found in that volume of the 

 ' Badminton ' series which relates to Falconry. 



The flight with the goshawk is another affair. 

 It is the nature of these short-winged hawks to seize 

 their prey upon the ground, by one swift dash out of 

 a tree, or, in the case of trained birds, from off the fist of 



