PASSAGE HAWKS TRAINING 287 



Some sit like statues immovable, indifferent, resenting no 

 handling, noticing no food such are difficult hawks to train, 

 and only time and patience, added to experience, will train these, 

 though it can be, and annually is, done. Gradually the hawk 

 will become reconciled to the touch, to the sound of the 

 human voice, and will in a few days comport herself more like a 

 tame bird and less like a wild beast. Most of this work is done at 

 night ; and the best method of training wild-caught, or indeed 

 any other birds, is to deal with them at night, and to tame them 

 by depriving them of their natural rest and by handling them 

 by lamplight, which dazes them and takes away half their 

 power of resistance. Where time is an object, hawks are kept 

 awake for the whole night for three or four nights together, 

 and by such treatment a hawk may be tamed in about four 

 days. Such haste is rarely needed, and in ordinary cases any 

 hawk may be got into good order in reasonable time by taking 

 her on hand, say, from seven in the evening until eleven at 

 night ; and, indeed, a man may have two or three hawks on 

 the perch by his side, and by taking them in hand alternately 

 bring them all on together at the same rate. 



It is very important, if the most is to be made of passage 

 hawks, that each one should be taken in hand as soon as 

 she is caught, and tamed at once. This is not always easily 

 managed, and sometimes several birds are left to stand idle for 

 many days while others are being caught. This leads to many 

 faults, always causes delay (sometimes very great delay) in the 

 training and entering of such hawks, and not unfrequently 

 ruins them altogether. 



The great secret in successful training of passage hawks is 

 to get food into them by fair means. This is by no means so 

 easy as it appears to be, and requires no little skill in the way 

 of handling the hawk so as to get her to bite at the food which 

 is held on to her feet, and to continue feeding after she has 

 once begun. The room must be perfectly quiet, there must be 

 no changes of light or distant sounds heard, or the hawk's 

 attention will at once be arrested and she will leave off feeding. 



