60 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



difficulties will occur, even in the best-regulated establishments. 

 For instance, the hawks may begin to fly the very day after they 

 arrive, and before they will feed willingly. What is to be done 

 in such a case ? Well, each hawk must be made to the lure or 

 the fist before she is turned out. She may be brailed and kept 

 in a spare room, with or without her sisters and brothers. Or 

 she may have slits cut in her jesses, and be attached by a leash 

 to a block, for all the world like a trained hawk, and thence 

 enticed by degrees to run to the lure for her food, until she is 

 keen for it. She should at least know what the lure means before 

 being let entirely loose. But it is generally sufficient that one 

 of a lot which came from the same nest should be made to the 

 lure. The rest, when turned out, will find their way, when 

 hungry, after her to the feeding-place. Some special caution 

 should be observed with hobbies. I know of two which would 

 come to the lure in an outhouse, but only reluctantly. They 

 were turned out one morning to hack in a quiet place, and, 

 though they had never flown more than a yard high before, 

 went up into tall fir-trees. And there they remained, staring 

 at the well-garnished lures which were laid out underneath, 

 declining to go down, taking short flights from tree to tree, and 

 cruising about in the air. This state of affairs continued for about 

 three days, after which it was discovered that the two youngsters 

 — who had never been seen to chase anything, far less to kill 

 it — had become wild hawks ! Some falconers habitually carry 

 their eyesses, break them to the hood, and partially reclaim 

 them, before turning them out to hack. But the more natural 

 and promising system is never to confine them at all until they 

 are taken up at the end of the period of hack. The youngster, 

 when thus treated, has become, by the time she has to be put 

 in training, as like a wild hawk as a tame one can be. And, as 

 the haggard is better than the red passager, and the passager 

 than the soar-hawk, so by analogy it may be assumed as a rule 

 that the hack hawk which has never been handled is superior 

 to the eyess which has. Sir John Sebright's plan of putting 

 out the young hawks in a hamper hung against a tree-trunk, 

 with the lid of the hamper turned down as a platform by day, 

 and fastened up at night, will answer with orderly, well-behaved 

 hawks. But it will be wise to keep a close watch upon the 

 artificial nest, in case of a hawk jumping off when it can run 

 but cannot fly. It might stray for ever so far, and hide in 

 bushes, or be devoured by a cat or fox. 



We suppose now that the eyesses are at hack. Even yet 

 their outer wing feathers will not be fully down ; and the sails, 



