HOW I BECAME A FALCONER. 57 
to carry merlins unhooded when they are really in the field. My 
plan has been this: I have unhooded just before entering the field, 
and have then carried a hawk on each hand, holding the tips of the 
jesses. It is wonderful how the little birds stand on the qui vive, 
turning their heads sharply at the least movement of a leaf, and 
ready to start into full swing at the rising of a lark. Just in this 
way, though not so lightly, the goshawk sits on the glove, when she 
is in real earnest, and prepares to dash off as you kick each bush 
for a rabbit. But of the goshawk I shall speak in another chapter. 
At first I used to keep my merlins too long at hack. I thought, 
and rightly thought, that it was better to’have three or four clever, 
active birds, with strong muscles, than five or six that had only been 
on the wing for a week; but Borzot how unfair it is to suppose 
that keepers can protect little hawks, even from their own guns. 
The bells may not be heard, and the size of a merlin on the wing 
is so nearly that of the kestrel and sparrowhawk, that, unless a 
keeper is very careful indeed, he may destroy your property without 
at all meaning to doso. Peregrines are such large birds, so different 
from what keepers call “the country hawks,” that they can hardly 
ever be killed by a man who has instructions to preserve them, unless 
he is a rogue; but merlins, as I have said, have not the protection 
of size. These little hawks, then, while it is necessary that they 
should run some risk of their lives, need not be rashly exposed. 
‘The longer they are out, the more they are in danger; and, indeed, 
if they are out too long—ualess the bells are so weighty as to injure 
them—they will prey for themselves, and so leave you. Give them 
a good three weeks, and be thankful if you take them up at the end 
of that time uninjured. 
I wish heartily that I had kepta journal, of late years, on hawking 
matters; but it isa long time since I set down any incident belonging 
to the sport. Still, I have page after page of first experiences, to 
which my friends are very welcome. They are the enthusiastic 
