140 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



the corn has just been carried. Stronger and older larks may 

 be found on the open down, but not in any great numbers. In 

 years of drought, many will get to the fields where roots are 

 growing. At these moulting larks, a merlin may be flown six 

 or eight times in an afternoon. But what was said in the 

 chapter on "Game-Hawking" about leaving off with a hard flight 

 and a kill, is still more applicable to merlins than peregrines. 

 These little hawks can in addition be flown in the early morn- 

 ing. But though I have done this occasionally, I doubt its 

 being a good practice, and should prefer, if the weather is 

 settled, to give stooping at the lure before breakfast, and wait 

 till past midday for the field. But when the weather is bad 

 you must go out when you can. The biggest score that I know 

 to have been made in a day, flying both morning and evening, 

 is ten, which Colonel Sanford killed with one of his merlins. 

 I have myself killed ten in a day with a single hawk ; but one 

 of them was taken by her in a double flight, and therefore 

 counts only for a half. Each of these hawks was a specially 

 good-tempered and well-mannered hawk. For any merlin to 

 take six larks single-handed in one day is a decided feat. The 

 most I have known to be killed in any one year by a merlin 

 single-handed is 106, the score of Jubilee in 1897 ; and the 

 highest average I have known made is fifty-nine out of sixty- 

 five flights — a percentage of more than 90 per cent. This 

 was achieved by the merlin Sis, which made the extraordinary 

 score of forty-one out of forty-two successive flights, the one 

 miss being a ringer at which she was thrown off when the head 

 of another lark was hardly down her throat — before she had 1 • 



shaken herself, or had time to look round. 



As soon as the larks have moulted, they become practically 

 all ringers. Such larks have never yet been taken regularly. 

 Usually the merlins begin to refuse them in the latter part of 

 September. The latest lark I have killed was on a 7th of 

 November. To take winter larks it would be necessary to have 

 a cast of very first-rate merlins, which had never, upon any 

 pretext, left a moulting lark. With these it is possible that a 

 few might be taken ; but after very long flights. And what of 

 the unsuccessful flights ? They would go so far that I fear the 

 hawks must certainly be lost. A merlin which is good enough 

 to take even one moulted lark is good enough to find her living 

 anywhere; and I doubt if she would trouble to come back 

 after a long unsuccessful flight for any reason, sentimental or 

 otherwise ! 



Double flights at larks are very pretty, and also very deadly. 



