314 FALCONRY 



other varieties. Several of the gerfalcons were flying at the 

 lure in the finest conceivable style. In fact, three of them 

 were, in our opinion, and in that of Mr. Newcome, whose 

 judgment could hardly be called in question, among the best, if 

 not absolutely the finest, fliers that have been trained during 

 the memory of any living man. The falcons were being, some 

 of them, regularly flown at hares, and we saw a curious flight 

 or two of this nature. Alas ! Even at this early stage the 

 asthma, to which we have referred above, was rife among these 

 noble hawks, and by the close of the year almost the whole 

 team were defunct or useless, with hardly a record to their 

 names of wild quarry killed ! 



In 1876 John Barr, who was then employed by the Falconry 

 Club, was sent to Norway in order to obtain gerfalcons of the 

 variety of that country, which it was hoped would be more free 

 from the fatal disease which was so destructive to the Ice- 

 landers. He succeeded in taking ten, all of which but one 

 were females, and all young birds. Out of those which landed, 

 six were dead by the end of December of the fatal ' pantas ' ; 

 of the two which fell to the portion of the Old Hawking Club, 

 one died in a few weeks, and the other was successfully, but 

 with great trouble, trained and entered. She was in no respect 

 a good hawk, and died the following August of a fatal form of 

 frounce. Of the others, one only took wild quarry, viz. rooks, at 

 which she was flown on Epsom Downs by Mr. J. E. Harting. 

 Three gerfalcons have been caught at Valkenswaard. Of the 

 first we have no record, save that it was trained at the Loo, and 

 was no great success ; the second was for some time in England, 

 jn the possession of Lord Lilford ; the third was a noble tiercel 

 caught in 1878 in the adult plumage, and, so far as we know, is 

 the only haggard gerfalcon (of that species) that ever was trained. 

 He fell into the hands of the Old Hawking Club, and was very 

 carefully trained by their falconer, John Frost. Although a 

 haggard, he had a finer temper than most gerfalcons, and was 

 trained without a great deal of trouble. He was entered to 

 rooks on Salisbury Plain, and turned out a most splendid hawk, 



