FALCONRY 



his bird at the first flight. Having once broken the law, 

 grown bolder in iniquity, as is usually the case, we stuck at 

 nothing, and had a very pleasant day's sport indeed : for the 

 hawks were well broke in to ptarmigants and flew well. We 

 killed twenty-two birds and had a most incomparable flight 

 at a snipe, one of the best I ever saw, for full sixteen minutes. 

 The falcon flew delightfully, but the snipe got into a small 

 juniper bush near us, her only resource. I ordered the tercel 

 to be leached down, and I took the other falcon, meaning at 

 any rate that they should succeed with this snipe. When 

 flushing it I flew my falcon from the hood ; the other was in a 

 very good place, and on the falconer's head. A dreadful, 

 well-maintained flight they had, and many good buckles in the 

 air. At length they brought her like a shot from the clouds, 

 into the same juniper bush she had saved herself in before, and 

 close to which we were standing. Pluto stood it, and so closely 

 that I fortunately took it alive : and throwing out a moor 

 poult to each falcon as a reward, and preventing by this means, 

 the two hawks fighting for the snipe and carrying it away, we 

 fed them up, delighted beyond measure at this noble flight. 

 We minuted them very accurately both times, when they took 

 the air, and the last flight was eleven minutes ; during which 

 time, moderately speaking, they could not fly less than nine 

 miles, besides an infinite number of buckles or turns.' ^ 



Like a good sportsman, Colonel Thornton spared the snipe 

 which had given such a flight and let it go, as the bird had 

 received only a slight stroke from one of his pursuers and, 

 though very stiff, was little hurt. The power of the falcon's 

 stoop is exhibited in the author's remark that he once saw a 

 bird of his ' at one stroke cut a snipe in two parts, so that they 

 fell separate.' 



' The noblest of all possible flights in which the powers of 

 a trained hawk could be engaged,' says Major Hawkins Fisher, 

 ' were those of the wild kite and heron.' 



' The late Major Hawkins Fisher timed one of his falcons to travel a mile in fifty-eight 

 seconds, so Colonel Thornton's estimate may he less extravagant than it appears. 



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