HOW I BECAME A FALCONER. Vs 
CHAPTER IV. 
SOME TRIFLING ANECDOTES. 
It is sometimes difficult when one has made a promise to fulfil it, 
and I confess that, having just turned over in my mind the hawking 
anecdotes which I intended to offer my readers, I am disappointed 
at finding them so trivial, and so few and far between. A circum- 
stance may strike one as singular and worth relating at the time of 
its occurrence, which, when looked back upon, may appear bald and 
ordinary enough. In fact, I must not confine myself in this chapter 
to strict anecdote, or I shall make only a few paragraphs of it. 
T once lost a merlin for three months, and at the end of that time 
it was brought to me in a basket, alive and well, having been 
captured, only a couple of miles or so from the house, in a rather 
singular manner. I have mentioned the incident before, but so 
long ag6é that perhaps it will bear repetition. Some of the farmer 
lads about here set snares for fieldfares in the winter, after the 
following manner; and in describing it I make no hesitation in 
quoting a few lines of what I wrote in 1859 : “‘ The snare is made 
thus: A straight round piece of a branch is cut, from any tree of 
tough wood, about two or three feet in length, and three-quarters of 
an inch in diameter. Every twig is carefully taken off, and the 
marks of the knife obliterated. Atintervals of about an inch and a 
quarter small holes are bored with  nail-passer, into which are 
inserted the knots of black horse-hair nooses, each made of a length 
of three hairs, doubled and twisted, so that the noose is of six hairs’ 
strength, except at the loop. The opened noose is perhaps three 
inches in diameter. Little pegs driven into the holes, over the 
knots, make matters secure. One end of the stick is forked, the 
