22 PRACTICAL FALCONRY. 
the best birds don’t always excced 100 yards. But the marvellous 
advantage of high “ waiting on” is obvious; it commands a great 
extent of moor, it often causes a cut over at the first stoop, and, in 
any case, gives monstrous power and impetus. “ Not to speak it 
profanely,” I declare that to seo a trained hawk come out of heaven, 
frequently with the zigzag of lightning, upon rapidly-flying grouse, 
sends a something through my whole frame, so thrilling in its 
pleasure, that I almost fancy, in some previous state of existence, 
T must have been the real peregrine himself. 
I am not forgetting our business, however, in these raptures. We 
were speaking of the advantages and disadvantages of entering 
young hawks to pigeons, and one of the advantages was that they 
may be made useful in the practice of “‘ waiting on”—a term which I 
paused to explain. They may be made useful in this way. You have 
quarry in your hand; and when w young hawk has kept well and 
patiently above you for some little time (don’t try her patience too 
much), and you feel that the lure which she was called down to 
yesterday is not enough reward, you have it in your power to give 
her a flight, to teach her, by a convincing proof, that if she will only 
keep well above you, there shall not always be a lack of quarry. 
This I think very important. Again, all young hawks will be ready 
some time before the 1st of September, and generally before the 12th 
of August. At what, then, are you to fly up to those dates, if not at 
pigeons? The lure will hardly be sufficient. 
And now for the disadvantages. There is no quarry to which 
hawks take more kindly or naturally than pigeons. They are very 
soon wedded to them, and I have known tiercels, which have been 
flown at pigeons up to the 1st of September, make such lazy 
attempts at partridges that great trouble has been the consequence. 
Perhaps a partridge has had to be netted, or some such device 
resorted to, by way of entering, before any sport could be obtained. 
And cven with faloons, which are not so soon spoiled as tiercels, it 
