GAME-HAWKING 121 



encouragement she derives from it is occasionally so great that 

 she seems suddenly to develop her latent powers beyond all 

 expectation. 



You must not, however, expect that every young falcon will 

 be a good grouse-hawk. Indeed, you must not expect many 

 to be so. The quarry is a difficult one, and until you have 

 trained a good many partridge-hawks you are not likely to 

 make one for grouse. In partridge-hawking no very great 

 speed is wanted, if only the hawk will mount well and throw 

 up well. Partridges can be flushed much nearer, as a rule, to 

 the hawk than grouse. Although they are fast, especially up- 

 wind, they are not as fast as grouse, nor as wild. Nor perhaps, 

 I may add, as perverse in getting up at the place and time 

 you like least, though both are clever enough at choosing their 

 time for making off. In an enclosed country, if you do not kill 

 your partridge at the first shot, he will often put in at the next 

 hedge, and there you may mark him and get him out. But on 

 an open moor the grouse generally go so far before putting in 

 that you cannot mark the place near enough to get them out 

 quickly. Thus out of a hundred eyess peregrines, probably 

 more than 70 per cent, will, in good hands, fly partridges very 

 fairly, whereas out of a hundred eyess falcons — leaving tiercels 

 out of the account — you will not find anything like fifty which 

 are really good at the bigger quarry. Of tiercels it would be 

 rash to say that even 1 per cent, would fly well at grouse. Of 

 the falcons which fail some appear to be too lazy, and others 

 too slow. A good deal depends on the first few flights. If a 

 hawk has good luck on two or three occasions when she is first 

 taken out, and a young grouse gets up well within reach, the 

 young hawk will take heart, and, feeling assured that she can 

 take the quarry, will try hard and will improve. Choose, there- 

 fore, for a hawk that is of doubtful courage the flights which 

 seem likely to be the easiest. Remember that an immense deal 

 depends upon the conditions under which you call upon your 

 hawk to make her first flight at a grouse. 



There are still some places where you can shoot grouse over 

 dogs. If it be your good fortune to have access with your hawks 

 to a moor where this can be done, you are in luck. As soon as 

 there is a steady point (you are, of course, on open ground), 

 unhood and throw off your hawk, which has already learnt to 

 wait on. As long as she is moving upwards, making each circle 

 a little higher than the last, stand still and let her go on, or, if 

 the point is far off, walk steadily towards it. The grouse will 

 have seen the hawk, and be in no hurry to move while she is 



