PRACTICAL FALCONRY. 3 
Park Gardens. As a rule they are imported either from France 
or Germany. 
Merlins are found on the moors. They build on the ground, but 
are not often offered for sale. Mr. Pape, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
sometimes gets them for his customers. . 
Sparrowhawks are easily procured. The gamekeeper of a wooded 
manor is almost sure to be able to help the falconer. 
Hobbies are so rare that itis hardly worth while to mention them ; 
but, if procured, they should be treated like merlins. 
The jer-falcons can be obtained from Iceland, Greenland, or 
Norway, by sending over a falconer to catch them. 
Peregrines are worth about 30s. each as soon as they are taken 
from the nest, falcons being rather more valuable than tiercels. 
Goshawks, untrained, cost about £4 each, the fémales being the 
more valuable. Merlins should not exceed 6s. or 7s. each when they 
leave the nest. Sparrowhawks cost what you like to give for them, 
say half-a-crown each. As for hobbies, valuable chiefly for their 
rarity and beauty, I can mention no price for them. In the lan- 
guage of shopkeepers, they are “ fancy articles ” altogether. 
Trained hawks vary in price in proportion to their merits. A first- 
rate grouse-hawk is, in my opinion, worth ten guineas ; a bird entered 
only to pigeons, £5, Iam speaking of the peregrine in both these 
cases. 
Another question which the beginner will ask—and it is rather a 
comprehensive question—is, ‘“‘ Where am I to keep my hawks; must 
I fasten them up by the legs, or put them in a large room, or what 
must Ido?” There are other questions equally important—coming 
in a measure from the last—such as, ‘‘ What do you mean by jesses, 
hoods, swivels, leashes, blocks, perches, and so on?” Again, ‘On 
what arc hawks to be fed; how much should they have at one 
meal?” ‘ What is meant by all these terms which you falconers 
write about so glibly, ‘ waiting on,’ and such like ?” 
B2 
