ORDER ACCIPITRES. '215 



be drawn along by a huntsman, who gradually augments his 

 pace, and ends by mounting on horseback, and dragging off the 

 skin in full gallop. The bird at first reaches it with the beak 

 open, and out of breath ; but, on successive exercise, he gains 

 wind, and comes in with the beak closed. They always take 

 care to give him his repast on this skin. 



When they wish to teach a gerfalcon to pursue the heron, 

 buzzard, &c., they lure him with the skin of one of those birds, 

 flinging it daily farther and farther, and habituating him to 

 seize it in the air while falling. They end by employing in 

 these exercises a hen of obscure plumage, or even a real buz- 

 zard, attached to a stake, or a kite whose beak and claws have 

 been blunted. When the gerfalcon has seized them at thirty 

 or fifty feet of elevation, they then make him do so at a more 

 considerable distance, which terminates his education. 



The instruction of the proper falcons does not require so 

 much care, and may be terminated in a month, or even in 

 fifteen days when they are taken from the nest. The opera- 

 tions for w^eakening the falcons which have left the nest, or as 

 they are called haggards, are of the same nature as those vised 

 with the gerfalcon : they give them two or three hempen pel- 

 lets, and as many baths, which they will take of their own 

 accord when they are fastened near the edge of the water ; 

 otherwise they throw them in, and keep them there a sufficient 

 time. In about three days, they manage what is called making 

 the falcon's head, that is, accustoming him to the hood : they 

 then teach him to jump from the hand on the table, and from 

 the table on the hand. The lessons of the lure are soon prac- 

 tised in the open air, and there the bird is habituated to leap 

 from the turf on the hand , which the falconer first lowers, and 

 afterwards presents standing at distances more or less con- 

 siderable. Then comes the exercise of a pigeon attached to a 

 stake ; then the pigeon is held by a thread, and the falcon left 

 free ; and finally, a black hen is attached to the stake, to teach 

 the hunting of crows, a red hen for the kite, and a grey turkey- 



