HERON HA WKING 293 



a chance to the first hawk and down she comes, pressing the 

 heron hard so hard that as her mate follows her at an interval 

 of a second or two he is hit heavily. In another moment one 

 hawk has bound to him, and ere the struggle can commence 

 the other has joined in the fray, and all three birds steadily 

 descend to the ground. The wind has carried them for at 

 least a mile from where they were hooded off, and that, too, at 

 a pace as good as a horseman cares to gallop over fairly rough 

 ground with his eyes in the air. 



Old hawks will always let go the heron as they approach 

 the ground, so as to avoid the concussion, and will renew the 

 attack the instant that they are safely landed. Some falcons 

 are a little slow in * making in ; to a heron on the ground, and 

 in this way have been badly stabbed. If the heron has time 

 afforded to him to collect himself and get into a fighting attitude 

 he is a dangerous opponent, but the fables of hawks spitting 

 themselves as they stoop upon beaks upturned in the air are 

 myths which have no foundation in fact. A heron on the 

 ground is, however, a formidable enemy, and when hawks are 

 flown at a bagman it is essential that his beak be muzzled by 

 being cased in a double piece of soft elder, one for each 

 mandible, or mischief is sure to ensue. 



It is absolutely necessary that hawks should be well entered 

 to herons and should be kept to this flight alone. So far as we 

 know, there is hardly any place left in England where a heronry 

 exists with suitable country round it so that one or even two 

 flights could be obtained daily. It is not, therefore, worth the 

 while of any falconer to set aside a cast or two of his best 

 hawks for a flight which, noble as it is, he could not obtain 

 with any certainty. Probably at the Loo although even there 

 much of the country is enclosed and cultivated very good sport 

 could be obtained, but it is thirty-six years since the cry of ' A la 

 vol ' echoed in the domain of ' Het Loo,' and it is doubtful if 

 there are more than two or three falconers now alive who have 

 seen the heron taken 'a la haute volee.' Heron hawking 

 must, for the present, be looked upon as a thing of the past ; 



