270 FALCONRY 



In 1883 the Club hawks, under the same management, 

 killed : 



Grouse .... 85 



Blackgame ...... 7 



Partridges . . . . . , 87 



Pheasants ...... 3 



Sundries , , 21 



203 



But considering how bad a partridge year this was, and that 

 no hawking was done after November i, it can hardly be 

 called a fair average year. About six hawks were flown during 

 the season. In 1886 ninety six grouse and one woodcock were 

 killed at Langwell, Caithness, in August and September, and 

 in 1887 ninety-three grouse on the same moors, two blackcock, 

 and two pheasants. 



Where grouse are so wild that they cannot possibly be in- 

 duced to lie to the dog, flights may be obtained by putting up 

 the hawk to wait on as soon as likely ground is reached, and 

 forming a good wide line of beaters across the moor. If the 

 hawk is steady and goes high, a good many grouse may be 

 killed in this way ; but it is, of course, an inferior sport to the 

 legitimate practice of working the highly trained dog in con- 

 junction with the highly trained hawk, which has been de- 

 scribed in the preceding pages. 



The method of putting the hawk up beforehand has been 

 regularly followed by Major Hawkins Fisher, a falconer of 

 thirty years' experience, who has met with success of no mean 

 order. In 1887 Major Fisher made the excellent bag of in 

 grouse, nine partridges, one snipe, and a woodcock owl, and in 

 1886 he also met with excellent sport, of which we have not 

 a record. Major Fisher also gives an account of an extraor- 

 dinary flight which one of his eyess falcons made at a woodcock 

 on the shores of Loch Eil, when both cock and hawk mounted 

 into the air over the loch to such a height that even powerful 

 glasses failed to discern them. At last a speck was seen coming 



