GOSHAWKS 331 



and feeds thereon without hesitation. When first the hood is 

 taken off it should be done by candle-light, and the hawk 

 should be carried till she recovers her first alarm at being bare- 

 headed. She must then be placed in a dark room, on the 

 perch, and taken on hand therein for half an hour or so in the 

 morning before she is brought into the daylight. As soon as 

 she will sit pretty quietly on the hand, she should be carried 

 at intervals for the whole day. Every time she is taken on to 

 the fist a reward of meat should be given her. She should 

 gradually be taken among all the strange people, sights, or dogs 

 that can be found, and in fact accustomed to everything 

 that is unusual. An hour or two in the village blacksmith's 

 forge, with all its strange sights, sounds, and constantly changing 

 succession of visitors, is admirable training, provided that her 

 food be given her at intervals, so that she may learn to pull 

 away at a meal amongst all these disturbing influences. Colonel 

 Delmd Ratcliffe most wisely advises carrying a hawk in the gas- 

 lit streets of a crowded city — an excellent means of taming her 

 where it can be carried out. In fact, as Bert phrases it, ' She 

 shall be well assured to finde no other perch than the fist, from 

 the time I rise till I goe to bed, when she shall goe with 

 me.' 



Very soon, if the hawk be well handled by her master and 

 not frightened by any harsh treatment either by look or by 

 deed — for goshawks watch their carrier's eye and are very sen- 

 sitive to it — she will become very tame, and show but little 

 fear of strangers. Long ere this stage is arrived at she will 

 have learned to jump to the fist the instant she sees food, and 

 have begun to come to it when held out to her in the expecta- 

 tion of being fed. 



She should now be called to the hand in a long string out 

 of doors. It is better that she be set on the ground for these 

 lessons ; she will come the more readily, and it will not tend to 

 get her into the ha:bit of taking perch in a tree after a flight — 

 this should always be discouraged. The fist is the home of the 

 goshawk, and she should never be allowed to fly quarry from 



