FALCONRY 



flown together at a heron, as two greyhounds are usually 

 slipped at a hare), the curlew would have been taken in five 

 minutes, and with such a complete suit of new and good 

 feathers as the old falcon now possesses, I should myself be 

 very sorry indeed to be a curlew in front of her. 



' Shall I mention again a singular flight I once saw Avorked 

 at a woodcock ? This bird, when put to it, possesses remark- 

 able powers of flight, as its extended migrations, and splendid 

 shape and length of wing, abundantly warrant. It occurred 

 in this wise, in October 1866. I found myself with hawks 

 (eyesses), dogs, gillies, a keeper, and my gun, on the moor near 

 the western end of Loch-Eil, in Argyle, at a place called Fassie- 

 fern, not far from the place where Prince Charlie met his 

 devoted Highland clansmen in arms for his crown, only to lose 

 the day, and their lives, at fatal, and bloody, Culloden. I made 

 a line to beat out a wide bank of bracken, then brown with early 

 autumn, and saw a bird which I believed then to be a cock, 

 and the keeper, a winged grouse, jump up in front. Had I 

 but had the courage of my convictions, and put my favourite 

 falcon, called " Taillie " from her broken tail — a Welsh hawk 

 she from the Glamorgan precipices, of the Worms Head — 

 aloft, then she would have probably been saved much trouble, 

 and we should have lost a glorious sight, and flight, for the day 

 was stilly, bright, and lovely, and the sea loch and its waves 

 sparkled in the sun. No ; I took her on my fist, and struck her 

 hood in readiness, half disposed to believe in McPhee the game- 

 keeper. Just where I saw the bird spring, suddenly up went 

 a fine woodcock. No winged bird she, but in full possession 

 of the excellent pair, that had not long before brought her 

 (I suppose, for we do not know) from Finland, or elsewhere 

 in the North, to Argyle. I unhooded and cast "Taillie" 

 after her, and the flight began. This woodcock would have 

 much astonished sportsmen only used to their actions in a 

 thick cover. Up and up she went in long zig-zags, and with 

 precisely the style and action of her small relative, Scolopax 

 Gallinago, the common snipe, but mute. The falcon mounted 



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