3o6 FALCONRY 



moult out with a beautiful pale blue back, a crop and breast 

 almost white, with a few regular bars across the lower part. 

 Another will have a back of the darkest blue, with head and 

 cheeks very nearly jet black and a breast of rich salmon colour, 

 almost rose, so strongly marked with black that, excepting that 

 the markings run horizontally and not perpendicularly, they are 

 almost as thick as they were in the young plumage. In old 

 hawks pale cinnamon feathers are not uncommon about the 

 nape of the neck, so that the hawk has somewhat the appear- 

 ance of F. Babylonicus, 



We are satisfied from close observation that it is not possible 

 to tell from the plumage of hawks in the immature stage 

 whether, when fully moulted out, they will be of the darker or 

 lighter variety. As a rule those falcons which are very black in 

 the young stage will be of a dark variety when moulted out; 

 but we have known very light red young hawks moult to a dark 

 variety, and vice versa. 



A disagreeable but a common phase of falconry is the loss 

 of a hawk, and her recovery taxes oftentimes both the patience 

 and the skill of the falconer. Usually the first cause of the 

 loss is that the flight has carried both hawk and quarry far 

 beyond the ken of their followers. In such case the falconer 

 will follow on down wind as fast as he can to the spot where 

 he last saw the birds, or beyond that to any point where he 

 thinks the flight likely to have terminated. Here he will search 

 all covert into which the quarry may have been driven and 

 killed, from time to time showing his lure, in case the hawk 

 may be either soaring to cool herself after a hard flight or be 

 sitting sulky and disappointed close to where she lost her prey. 

 If he has with him any of the field on horseback, they must be 

 sent on straight down wind to look over all likely places, and 

 especially to the neighbouring rookeries. If the hawk is near 

 these or within them there will be a most unmistakable com- 

 motion, and a signal will show the falconer either that she is 

 there or has passed that way. If the latter prove to be the 

 case, the hawk is probably to be sought for still farther down 



