262 NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 



of Leeds and Mr. Newcome, and who died at Lakenheath in 

 March 1883. (See "The Hawking Career of John Pells " in The 

 Fields 23rd June i860, and an obituary memoir of him, The Field, 

 31st March 1883.) 



XII. Peter Ballantine, the last of the old Scotch 

 Falconers, born 1798, died 1884. From a paintinc^ 

 by A. D. Cooper, 1879, in the possession of Mr. R. 

 Oswald of Auchincruive, Ayrshire. 



Peter Ballantine was born in 1798 at Dumfries House, 

 Ayrshire, where his father — who had formerly acted as falconer 

 to the Earl of Eglinton — was employed as steward to the 

 Marquis of Bute. The elder Ballantine was devoted to Falconry, 

 and had sufficient leisure time on his hands to keep a hawk 

 always in training, while his friend John Anderson, already 

 noticed, was in the service of Sir Alexander Donne at Ochiltree, 

 hard by, as falconer. Between these two the young Peter had 

 no difficulty in learning the first principles of Falconry ; but in 

 addition to this he imbibed that love for hawks and that gentle- 

 ness in their treatment which he preserved to the day of his death. 



At the age of about twenty Peter Ballantine took service 

 under his old friend John Anderson, who was then falconer to 

 the Renfrewshire Subscription Hawks, which were maintained 

 at Barochan, the seat of Mr. Fleming. Peter remained with 

 Anderson as his assistant until the retirement of the latter on a 

 pension in 1832, when he entered the service of Lord 

 Carmarthen, afterwards Duke of Leeds, as assistant falconer to 

 John Pells, father of the last John Pells, who died at Lakenheath 

 in March 1883. 



The hawks were then kept at Huntly Lodge, Aberdeenshire, 

 and while old Pells kept a i^v^ passage falcons at work, Ballantine 

 trained the Scotch eyesses, and excellent sport was obtained at 

 herons with the former, and at every description of game with 

 the latter. The finest sport of all was the flight at the woodcock, 

 which was plentifully found in the young plantations which then 

 clothed Deeside, a flight which combined the glorious "stoop" 

 of the well-placed game falcon with the " high mountee " or 

 ringing flight usually obtained with the heron. 



