86 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING , 



the block ? Many falconers will answer Yes. But I am of a 

 different persuasion. A man who is over-hawked, or has too 

 few assistants, may think it almost a necessity to weather his 

 hawk at the block. But even in such a case I would advise to 

 weather her in her hood. The proper way, however, to weather 

 a hawk, when she is in course of being manned, is surely on the 

 fist. If a man has so many hawks and so few falconers that he 

 cannot spare one of the latter to carry each of the hawks for 

 some hours every day, he is going about his business in an 

 unbusiness-like way. What good can a passage hawk possibly 

 get from standing as a prisoner on a block of wood, tempted 

 continually to jump off, and jerked back as often as she does so 

 by a rude pull on to a damp plot of grass ? The fashion now 

 so prevalent of pegging hawks out on the lawn by themselves 

 seems to me, if the truth is to be told, to have originated in the 

 laziness of the falconer or his subordinates. It is manifestly 

 much easier and simpler to tie a hawk to a block, than to roam 

 about with her on the fist. But is it equally beneficial? Is 

 it even advisable at all ? It is argued that a hawk, while so 

 pegged out, is breathing the fresh air and getting manned, if 

 there are, as there should be, people passing to and fro before 

 her eyes. But, on the other hand, she is all the time plagued 

 by a feeling of discomfort and discontent, which cannot be good 

 for her. Her position is not natural to her. It is not the one she 

 would choose of her own accord. Every bird which flits across 

 within her field of view, every cloud which passes over head, 

 almost every breeze which whispers in the tree-tops, suggests to 

 her a longing to take flight. A dozen places invite her to leave 

 her humble perch and go to them and obtain a better view. 

 Four out of every five wild-caught hawks, unless their spirit has 

 been half broken by fasting or persecution, will be found to 

 bate off constantly when pegged out. And bating off cannot 

 do them any good. It must remind them painfully that they 

 are now captives and slaves. Moreover, it is impossible to 

 properly arrange their surroundings. Either there will be too 

 many or too few people about. And whoever there is about, 

 whether man, child, or dog, will either be too near or too far 

 away. The background will not arrange itself with a due regard 

 to the happy medium between distant reserve and vulgar famili- 

 arity. On the whole, there are very few passage hawks that 

 I should like to peg out bareheaded before they have arrived 

 at a much later stage of their education than we have yet 

 reached. 



