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THE REVIVAL OF FALCONRY. 83 
and thus saves me the pain of having to reconcile conflicting 
duties. Otherwise I fancy I should fire, to save appearances, and 
as a compromise—but probably wide, to save my feelings! 
Harriers and Buzzards, especially the former, are the hawks for 
whose misdeeds the noble and comparatively harmless Peregrine 
too often suffers. With poetic justice, Peregrines can be trained to 
take them, and a very fine flight it is. Normandy is the country 
for this sport, which one of my falconers has also carried out 
successfully at Chalons. Good riders are needed, as the Peregrine 
gets sadly mauled in the struggle on the ground unless aid is 
forthcoming. 
A Kestrel, too, affords a very pretty flight; but I scarcely like to 
fly a tierce] at it in the open country where the flight will end in a 
kill, as it seems a shame to destroy this little hawk—the farmer’s 
best friend. I once took thirty-nine caterpillars out of the crop of 
a Kestrel, though the mischievous field mice constitute its more 
usual food. 
I think I have said enough to prove that, after twenty years’ 
labour in the cause, I am at last justified in pronouncing the 
Revival of Falconry in England to be no longer hopeless. It is, 
I firmly believe, now possible: whether it is probable must depend 
mainly on others. 
Personally, I can do little more. Military duties leave me 
neither opportunity nor leisure to enjoy the sport as I used to do 
in the happy days of old when, unassisted, I trained and worked 
all my own hawks. But others are welcome to the result of 
experience and heavy outlay. I can assure them that my expe- 
rience, quite apart from my present hawking establishment (which 
is no trifle!) has been very dearly bought, though I trust not bought 
in vain. 
A very few words will suffice to sum up briefly the advantages 
we now possess over those we had ten years ago. 
We are comparatively free from the scourge of hedge-poppers. 
Long may we remain so! 
We are no longer at the mercy of one professional falconer, and 
dependent on his good or bad conduct. 
We are no longer dependent for supplies on bird-dealers (an 
untrustworthy fraternity, as a rule), who import the hawks in such 
bad order as to be practically useless. 
