358 FALCONRY 



jointly with Major Fisher ; and the year following, finding that 

 the management of the hawks, which was left on his hands, 

 was more than he could attend to, a club was organised which 

 grew and prospered as the present Old Hawking Club. The 

 original members in 1864 were : 



The Hon. C. Duncombe Mr. E. C. Newcome 



Lord Lilford Mr. Amherst 



The Maharajah Dhuleep Col. Brooksbank 



Singh A. E. Knox, Esq. 



Robert Barr continued as falconer, and the chief sport of 

 the club was then, as now, shown on the Wilts downs in March 

 and April, rook hawking. A little heron hawking was done 

 in Norfolk in May after the hawks returned thither each year, 

 and some good work was done at grouse, chiefly in Perthshire 

 on moors taken by the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh. In 187 1 

 falconry in England sustained a severe blow by the death 

 of Mr. Newcome at the comparatively early age of sixty, and, 

 utider that shock and other difficulties, the fortunes of the 

 club for a brief while were at a low ebb. But in 1872 it was 

 reorganised on a rather larger basis. The Wiltshire downs 

 were again visited, and in that autumn a peculiarly fine team 

 of passage hawks was got together. John Barr had been 

 engaged as falconer, and the present writer succeeded Mr. 

 Newcome as secretary and manager. The area of operations 

 became somewhat extended. A first-class team of hawks, 

 eyesses, and passage hawks has ever since 1872 been 

 maintained, suitable for every description of hawking. The 

 annual two months' visit to the Wiltshire downs has been kept 

 up as the leading feature of the club's sport ; and the great 

 kindness and liberality of a large body of owners and occu- 

 piers of land on the open downs of Salisbury Plain has 

 enabled the club to establish itself on a tract of country wide 

 enough to show sport every day without doing damage to any- 

 one. Besides this, the hawks and their falconer are at the 

 disposal of any member of the club who desires to use them 



