PRACTICAL FALCONRY. 33 
smallest trouble; will take a second grouse almost before the first 
is thoroughly digested, and so on: this being the case, you will 
hardly have an opportunity of luring her, and not often one 
of secing her on the wing. He continues: ‘‘I repeat, never 
have a haggard for game. I have had the best grouse-hawking 
this year, and killed the most grouse of any year since I began 
hawking; but what is the consequence? I have lost one haggard, 
and two other passage-hawks” (a wild-caught hawk in the imma- 
ture plumage is spoken of often only as a “ passage-hawk,’’ not as a 
haggard)—“ all three as goodasany man ever had, but out of their 
place at game.” ; 
In answer to this I told him that I did not doubt he was right, and 
yet I would try. I would geta wild-caught falcon, and do all I could 
to enter her to my live hack ; then fly her at grouse in the neigh- 
bourhood. But, after all, what can beat ‘such eyesses as the 
Princess and Islay, or many other nestlings which I have trained 
and flown? IfIever have the opportunity of flying a haggard at 
grouse for any length of time, I will tell my readers the result. 
T have now said all I intend to say about grouseand partridge hawk- 
ing, except this hint. If an eyess should be very much disappointed 
in flying game before she has killed any, I recommend the following 
plan.* Before she declines flying it altogether, let your markers have 
each a brown chicken, about the size of the quarry, flown at; and 
if she should again “putin” her bird where it cannot easily be 
retrieved, let a chicken be thrown down to her in a string before she 
attempts to leave the spot. She must then be allowed to gorge on it, 
be hooded, and taken home, The string is necessary to prevent the 
chicken creeping into covert ; but it must not be too much displayed. 
As for the chicken itself, if it is a tolerable representation in colour 
* It should only, however, be adopted in extreme cases. See a caution 
towards the end of this chapter. 
