296 FALCONRY 



But as soon as the hawk gains her pitch fairly over the rook, 

 he can no longer carry on in the teeth of the gale, but must 

 turn down wind, thus passing under the falcon and giving her 

 the chance of her stoop, and also passing by all the horsemen, 

 who, up to this point, have been following the flight up wind. 

 Although the rest of the flight will be down the wind, the hawk 

 will have so far got the advantage that she will put in stoop 

 after stoop, and thus the horsemen will be able to keep up 

 fairly well, and, at any rate, to see a pretty flight with many 

 stoops, far different from a long down-wind stern chase, and 

 should, moreover, be near enough at the finish (if their horses 

 can gallop, and they can ride them) to secure the hawk, if, per- 

 chance, she is, after all, beaten to some covert. Let it then be 

 considered an inviolable rule in rook hawking and all similar 

 flights that the hawk be flown dead in the wind at the quarry, 

 just as in game hawking the birds should be flushed dead down 

 wind under the hawk. 



It is not always an easy matter to enter falcons at rooks. 

 The quarry is distasteful to them because it is difficult to catch, 

 difficult to master when on the ground, and disagreeable to 

 eat. Many hawks can only be' brought to fly them by very 

 skilful management, and at first all must be extra sharp set 

 when first entered to them. No hawk, however, can be made 

 to show any sport by the process of starvation, and, though she 

 may be so reduced by hunger as to dash keenly at anything 

 alive, yet her strength will fail her directly she is asked to climb 

 into the wind over a rapidly mounting rook. The famous 

 hawk ' Bois-le-Duc ' was a striking instance of this unwillingness 

 to fly rooks. Throughout her training she had shown such 

 power, speed, and dash that it was clear she was a hawk of no 

 mean order. When entered at bagged rooks she would dash 

 at them and take them out of sheer devilry ; and when first 

 flown at wild rooks she would tear away over them, in spite 

 of wind, snow, or any disadvantages, but having them cnce 

 at her mercy would disdain to stoop and finish her work. To 

 have starved her into flying would have been to sacrifice her 



