46 PRACTICAL FALCONRY. 
for more than half the year! They must take harm, I am sure, by 
doing so, both in health and in flight. With regard to health, 
though the confined birds appear pretty well, it takes some weeks 
or not far short of such a time, to get them into flying condition 
after the end of moult. The old falconers thought so, at least; they 
were most exacting in their demands on this point; and modern 
practice, though if in some measure disobeys the old falconers, is 
compelled not altogether to ignore them. Look at Latham, in the 
middle of the seventeenth century, or sooner: “ For there is no man 
that can make a hawk that is drawn from the mew ready to be 
flown under five or six weeks, if she be a full hawk.” Too soon 
put on the wing at quarry, after months of excessive fatness, 
she would be “‘full of grease and glut,” as they used to say— 
would ‘‘melt grease,’ &c. The best possible way, no doubt, 
would be to moult our hawks at hack, perhaps with heavy 
bells; but the risk would be very considerable. However, 
in my opinion, weekly exercise through moult is good for the 
bird’s health, and makes them continue to be adroit. Of the latter 
I think a great deal. I am assured, on very valuable authority, 
that hawks do not even require hack, for a bird, though flying 
wretchedly when first put on the wing, will, at the end of a week 
of constant flying, go like a wild one. Perhaps so, as far as flying 
straight on end is concerned; but I cannot bring myself to think 
that it will turn and foot like a wild one. I donot think that an 
unhacked bird can ever be so adroit as a hacked bird, even if I 
grant equal powers of straight flying ; nor can I conceive that six or 
seven months of absolute idleness during moult does not set its mark 
for evil both on health and ability. And, with regard to not flying 
an old grouse-hawk in August or September because it isin the moult, 
all Icansay is thatI can’t afford to lose the services of my old birds. 
Were I to shut them up till their moult was perfect, and they them- 
selves in what ig called “ flying order,” the 10th of December would 
