378 FALCONRY 



is not weakened by that starvation which alone could produce 

 a similar effect. But the treatment is a powerful one, and must 

 be used with extreme caution. Especially the drug must only be 

 administered in settled fine weather; a sudden change to- cold 

 or wild weather will destroy the bird vphen thus physicked ; 

 nor will a hawk in low or weak condition withstand so' drastic 

 a treatment — it will in itself lower her quite enough. We have 

 adopted it in the case of old self-willed hawks that were in 

 high condition and good fliers, but had become, as such hawks 

 sometimes will, independent of lure or discipline, uncertain as 

 to doing their best when hooded off, and inclined to soar away. 

 The effect has always been to reduce the hawk to absolute 

 obedience, and to bring her under perfect control ; but though 

 sometimes keen to fly, we think there has always been a loss 

 of dash and courage attending the effect of the physic. One 

 or two have been made very ill, and occasionally a hawk has 

 been killed by it. On the whole, it is a device infallible in 

 its action, but dangerous to use and not well suited to our 

 climate. It is sometimes highly successful, but must be used 

 with discretion, and in our opinion the more of this quality 

 that the falconer himself possesses, the less he will use of sal- 

 ammoniac for his hawk. 



After keeping his hawks in good health a falconer's chief 

 care should be to maintain their feathers in the most perfect 

 order. Without these hawks clearly cannot fly, and the loss 

 of even one important flight feather means as much to a 

 falcon as an impost of lo lbs. extra does to a racehorse. 

 Feathers, however, are but frail things, and in spite of all care 

 accidents to them will happen. Travelling, both on the box 

 cadge and still more so in hampers, is a fruitful source of 

 injury, and in killing rooks on dry hard fallows in March and 

 April hawks often get a good deal knocked about. In every 

 case a broken feather should be mended at once. So long as 

 the whole wing is intact, it presents but one outer edge to 

 strike against hard substances, with the combined strength of 

 all the feathers to bear the force of the blow ; directly a gap 



