PRACTICAL FALCONRY. 45 
The point of the upper mandible often becomes too long, and 
sometimes a split is caused. Cut off the-point with a pair of wire 
nippers, and use a sharp penknife to touch up the work. This 
is called coping. Of course in all these matters the hawk must be 
held by an assistant. 
The brail I have never used, nor do I think it is employed by many 
falconers. I will copy what is said about it from “ Falconry in the 
British Isles :” “It is simply a strip of soft leather about half an 
inch in breadth, tapering towards either end; a slit of about two 
inches long is made down the centre of the strip. Through this slit 
is put the joint of the hawk’s wing, whilst the wing is closed; one 
end of the leather is brought under the wing, and tied to the other 
end above it. By this means the wing is retained in its natural 
position, whilst the bird is at the same time prevented from using 
it” The brail is used for very restive hawks when they are first 
taken up. 
And now we come to the moult. Hyesses in the first plumage 
drop the first feather (the seventh in the wing) sooner than older 
birds. In the warm counties of England this sometimes happens as 
soon as the end of March or beginning of April; but my birds, here 
in Cheshire, seldom begin their moult till the lst of May. A bird 
kept very fat and warm moults sooner than one hard-worked and 
more or less exposed. With young eyesses the feathers are not 
fully replaced until the middle of October, or somewhere about that 
time. Haggards, and all old hawks, are considerably later. The 
usual practice is to “put the hawk up to moult,” as they call it, 4.¢., 
to keep her on the block, or loose in a warm loft, gorging her daily, 
from March till November. But for some years I have not scrupled 
to fly grouse with hawks still in the moult; and all through the 
summer I have given my moulting hawks some exercise every week 
orten days, with lure or pigeon. For myself, I can’t endure the notion 
of the birds doing nothing, sitting on their blocks like parrots in cages 
