28 PRACTICAL FALCONRY. 
dash through it, getting the birds up as soon as you ean. It is well 
that he should know the dogs, which he will do in a wonderfully 
short time, if they are allowed by degrees to go near his block when 
he is unhooded. 
So much for partridge hawking with the peregrine. We now come 
to a nobler sport—we come to hill and heather, to longer flights, to 
higher winds, to stronger exertion. We come to the peregrine falcon 
herself, the female bird who is so much greater than her husband, 
so much stronger, I think so much nobler. I will not say that 
grouse have not been killed by trained tiercels, for I know to 
the contrary; that they are often killed by wild tiercels there is 
no doubt ; but I am utterly and entirely for the falcon in grouse 
hawking, as the bird so easily entered to that quarry, and so 
thoroughly to be depended on in flying it. There is no flinching 
with the falcon, no seeming to slacken the pace as though she 
were afraid of hurting her foot with the blow; but there is down- 
right, headlong, rapid, earnest, brave, honest, mighty chasing— 
there is the very character of commanding power in every hiss 
of her rushing bell, and in every stroke of her glorious wings. 
She goes into battle knowing that she will conquer; she hurries 
on the prize, as one who would only snatch her own; she comes 
down, an armed cruiser with all her sails, certain of the little 
eraft that is bounding so quickly before her. Surely she is the 
queen of the wilderness and of the sky, the ruler of evory crea- 
ture beneath, the servant of butone above her! It is she to whom 
the winds are nothing, the hail nothing, the lightning on the 
mountains nothing—all these she defies; but man is her master, 
and I have seen her go out furiously at his bidding, or come 
down gently to his feet, out of the very clouds of heaven. 
For the first few weeks in Scotland, and for the first few days in 
England, grouse will lie to a point. Wait for one, and put the 
falcon up, as directed in partridge hawking. But when birds are 
