70 HOW I BECAME A FALCONER, 
again till they were out of sight. ‘The fur which I pulled off the 
falcon’s feet was all of the hare I ever really touched. 
I lost the Princess only once before I lost her altogether. She 
had flown through two grouse seasons, and I thought she would 
never leave me for many hours at a time, as she never had left me. 
If she was out for the night, there was a pigeon in the field, to 
which, like other hawks I have had of late, she always came. But 
one day she took it into her head to disappear and stayed away 
exactly a fortnight. I had kept relays of pigeons out for ten days, 
and then I gave her up, for she was not in the neighbourhood. At 
last there was a cry of a falcon over the house; I went out with a 
pigeon, and she came (fat as ever though she was) in an instant to 
my feet. I fancy a snow-storm had sent her home. 
When at length I really lost her, I have no doubt she was shot. 
An excellent and noble friend of mine saw her last flight, and sent 
me two peregrines from Scotland as soon afterwards as he could. I 
have her photograph—a very good one; but that is all left me now 
of the Princess—except, indeed, the memory of those bright days 
we have spent together on the hills, and the great wish that I could 
see her once more, even if it were only as she dashed across this 
valley, with a thing like a dark ball twenty yards before her, making 
my heart leap as she went. 
I pause for a moment in this little history, to say how thoroughly 
the being wedded to one special sport takes away the enthusiasm for 
others. For myself, I am not now quite in that predicament, for I 
have cooled down a good deal of late, and I think I am almost fonder 
of the memory of my birds than I am of the sport of falconry itself. 
I like a day’s pheasant shooting very much indeed: with all my 
honest regret that sport has lately taken a phase of which I dis- 
approve, I like a gun and a covert full of pheasants. Who does 
not P 
I make a point of mentioning this sort of feeling, because I, who 
