116 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



mode of training and flying them does not materially differ 

 from that of the commoner and hardier bird. It may be 

 assumed, therefore, for the purposes of the chapter, that game- 

 hawking means, what falconers generally understand by it, the 

 flight with peregrines at grouse, black-game, or partridges. 

 Pheasants, snipe, hares, and woodcocks will be dealt with in 

 another chapter. 



Grouse and black-game hawking differ in no important 

 particular from partridge - hawking ; and, generally speaking, 

 what is to be said about the latter may be said with equal truth 

 of the other two. It should be mentioned, however, that falcons, 

 from their superior strength, are much to be preferred for the 

 flight at the bigger quarry. Although there have been cases 

 where tiercels have done well at grouse, these are exceptional. 

 Usually they are averse to tackling so heavy a quarry, and, of 

 course, still more reluctant to take the field against blackcock. 

 They are, however, perfectly equal to the flight at partridges. 

 Some falconers have even professed to prefer them for this 

 flight to their sisters. This, however, was not the view taken 

 in the classic age of falconry; and if a fair comparison is 

 made the falcon will be found to be at least as good for the 

 stubble-fields, while vastly superior on the moors. Here again 

 the method of training and working, whether the one sex or 

 the other is used, is identically the same. 



In game-hawking, the eyess is much more on even terms 

 with the passager than in the flight out of the hood at rooks and 

 larger quarry. In fact, some of the very best and deadliest 

 grouse-hawks in modern times have come from the nest to the 

 falconer's hands. The records of the Old Hawking Club show 

 a quite exceptionally brilliant score made by one of their eyesses, 

 Parachute, who took no less than fifty-seven grouse in one 

 season, heading the list of that year's performances on the 

 Club moor. In the same year, 1882, Vesta, an eyess of her first 

 season, killed as many as forty-three grouse. Yet it must not 

 be inferred from this that every nestling is as likely to kill 

 grouse or partridges as well as a passage hawk. It is rarely 

 that the latter does not fly at least creditably, when trained, 

 whereas with eyesses the general rule is rather the other way. 

 A really first-rate performer is amongst eyesses the exception, 

 however well they have been hacked and trained. On the other 

 hand, the making of the eyess to this flight is beset by few of 

 the difficulties which trouble him who would train a wild-caught 

 hawk to it. It has been said already that a passage hawk, waiting 

 on at any height, must naturally be more apt to check at pass- 



