294 THE NEW FOREST 



the doings of these various favourites, interesting 

 as they may be to those who witnessed them. 

 There has never been a year up to the present 

 time that has not produced one or two very good 

 hawks ; but, of course, some of them stand out 

 as exceptionally good ones, and are remembered 

 accordingly. 



All of these hawks that I have named were 

 trained at Lyndhurst, with many others, year by 

 year. The mews was always open to visitors 

 who took an interest in the sport, and the early 

 lessons on training were all given on the Lynd- 

 hurst racecourse, where some scores of good hawks 

 first learned to use their powers of flight under 

 the control of man* 



But I regret to say that, although the exist- 

 ence of a pretty large stud of trained hawks 

 excited some little interest in the neighbourhood, 

 the ancient sport of falconry has lost its hold over 

 any but a small band of enthusiasts. The amount of 

 patience and time necessary to success in a very 

 difficult sport does not appeal to the modern 

 sportsman, who lives at a faster rate and requires 

 a larger return of quarry brought to bag to repay 

 him for his time and trouble than he can get 

 out of a trained falcon. 



Those who are once bitten with the desire to 

 follow this beautiful old sport seldom recover, 



