THE MODERN FALCONER 241 



year, and to render no little assistance in the early breaking 

 and training of these captious pupils. Naturally he must be a 

 man of experience, versatile, intelligent, and of some education, 

 so as to be able to study and master the different forms of the 

 science. No rule-of-thumb education will do here, for at a 

 few weeks' notice he is called upon to train different kinds of 

 hawks, in an entirely different manner, for flights which differ 

 one from another almost as much as it is possible for sports 

 to do. 



As is the modern falconer, so is the modern sport. We 

 travel faster, we get over more ground, and our hawks do more 

 work. Only a year or two ago the score of quarry killed by our 

 principal hawking club reached 600 head of winged game 

 taken in England, Scotland, and Ireland by different kinds of 

 hawk, all differently trained, entered, and managed. In ancient 

 days where one system was pursued such scores were impos- 

 sible, and though, perhaps, we are not nowadays superior to 

 the best of the old Scotch falconers as regards game hawking, 

 nor are we able to beat the best Dutch falconers as to their 

 management of the wild-caught hawk, yet in the combination 

 of both systems, with perhaps a few wrinkles from the Oriental 

 falconers, whose practice has been a good deal followed of 

 late years, we believe that modern falconers can lay claim to 

 a distinct superiority in their science over those of any one 

 school in ancient days. 



In one respect, certainly, English falconry has made a 

 great stride during the last twenty-five years — that is, in the 

 general management of passage hawks. A great deal has been 

 learnt here from the Indian falconers, to whom nestlings are 

 unknown, but who are able to do as much in every respect 

 with their wild-caught birds as European falconers can with 

 their eyesses. 



At any rate, in these later years, passage hawks are tamed 

 and trained, and that early in their career, to an extent which 

 was unknown to those masters of the art who, forty years ago, 

 achieved great results with them in certain flights, where clever 



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