292 FALCONRY 



ride hard enough to be handy at the finish, so as to make sure 

 that the heron should not be injured. When liberated a small 

 copper ring was fixed to his' leg with the date of his capture 

 written on it, and herons have been taken with as many as 

 three and four of these rings on their legs.' 



The method of conducting the sport is as follows. The 

 falconers with their hawks are placed at intervals of half a mile, 

 in two or three parties, down wind of the heronry, and at some 

 considerable distance from it. As the heron passes homewards 

 with his crop full of fish, he must pass within sufficiently close 

 distance of one or the other of these parties. As soon as he is 

 well past, and up wind of the hawks, they are hooded off. Pro- 

 bably the heron is two hundred yards away, and at least a 

 hundred yards high, and with such a start as this he can set-to 

 work to ring into the air with confidence. It is useless for 

 him to attempt to reach the heronry, which is dead up wind, 

 while he has such pursuers as these, behind him. Below him 

 is no protecting covert, and therefore his only resources are 

 the clouds above him. Ring after ring he makes, mounting 

 into the air in long spiral curves. Ring after ring do the hawks 

 make after him, tearing into the wind for perhaps half a mile 

 without a turn, and then swinging round in a great circle that 

 sends them higher and higher. At last one hawk is over him, 

 though at such a height we cannot distinguish the distances 

 . between them ; but we can see her shut her wings and drive hke 

 a bullet at the heron. A rapid shift, and the hawk has fallen 

 many hundreds of feet below her quarry, but, shooting up with 

 the same impetus, at once sets to work to ring into the wind, 

 so as to regain her lost advantage. During this ■ time the 

 second falcon has climbed almost out of sight above her mate 

 and her quarry, and can be just distinguished poising herself 

 for a terrific stoop. The good heron can just, but only just, 

 avoid it, and that with the loss of a few feathers and a down- 

 ward sweep that sacrifices some minutes of the hard ringing by 

 •which the height he is now at was attained. This sweep gives 



1 See Falconry in the British Isles, p. 8i. 



