346 FALCONRY 



real lover of hawks, active and intelligent, it is no wonder that 

 he more thoroughly fathomed the mysteries of catching, taming, 

 and training a hawk than any man we have as yet met. There 

 was no quarry that he had not flown at, no kind of hawking 

 that was not familiar to him. 



From 1857 to 1865 he was with the Maharajah, during 

 which period he may be said to have trained every variety of 

 hawk used in falconry^ and to have taken every quarry that 

 can be killed by means of hawks. After this he became head 

 falconer to the Champagne Hawking Club, whose head-quarters 

 were at the camp of Chalons. A good deal of sport was shown 

 by Barr at rooks, herons, magpies, curlews, &c. In 1869 the 

 club was broken up, but the hawks were kept on by the Comte 

 de Aldama, and though Barr subsequently brought them over to 

 England, he was still, we believe, in the Count's service. At 

 that time he had several excellent hawks in training, some of 

 whose performances have been referred to on page 286. In 

 1869 John Barr, with his nephew, James Barr, also a falconer, 

 made a successful visit to Iceland to capture gerfalcons, 

 which, mainly owing to John Barr's skill, resulted in his 

 bringing home thirty-three, though he was, of course, a 

 perfect stranger to the country, and ' probably had not at 

 that time seen a wild gerfalcon. He was next engaged by 

 Lord Bute to take the place of his brother Robert, who 

 had recently died, but he only remained for a short time in his 

 lordship's service, and after that he gave exhibitions of trained 

 hawks at various places, chiefly the Welsh Harp at Hendon, 

 after the fashion of his brother William. In 1872 he became 

 head falconer to the Old Hawking Club, and showed very 

 good sport on the Wilts downs. In 1873 he had an excep- 

 tionally good team of passage hawks, and we may remark 

 that he was the only falconer we have seen who succeeded 

 in taking peewits in the spring with a trained hawk. He 

 was next engaged by Captain Dugmore, who organised the 

 Falconry Club, to be described hereafter. At this time Barr 

 had three under-falconers, and flew hawks in Ireland, on 



