LARK-HAWKING 141 



If you throw off together one merlin which mounts quickly, and 

 another which is a good footer, you will rarely be beaten during 

 the moulting season ; and when you do meet with a first-rate 

 ringer, will see as real a bit of sport as man can imagine. 

 Occasionally you may have a double flight without intending 

 to do so. Eva had made two stoops at a very high ringer, 

 and brought him down some yards, when a wild female merlin 

 joined in. Stoop for stoop they alternatively played their 

 strokes, as if they had been trained together. After some 

 twenty of these alternative shots, the lark was taken, high in 

 the air. But not until we picked up Eva on the dead lark, half 

 a mile away, did anyone in the field know whether it was she or 

 the wild hawk that had made the fatal stoop. In other years I 

 have had many joint flights in the same way; and on one 

 occasion two wild merlins joined forces with a trained one, and 

 the lark ran the gauntlet for quite a long time of the three 

 chance allies. I confess, however, that there are objections 

 to the double flight with merlins. It may be from stupidity, 

 but I have never been able to keep the peace between the 

 partners. After the take, but before you can possibly get up, 

 there is a scrimmage on the ground, even if there has not been 

 a chevy in the air, which is not only undignified, but also most 

 trying to the temper of the hawk which has footed the lark. 

 Of course when you do come up you can separate the com- 

 batants, and reward the one which has been worsted in the 

 squabble. But in the meantime, how much mischief may have 

 been done to the feathers? In heron-hawking, where two 

 falcons are always flown, the empty-handed one is taken down 

 to the pigeon, and, with good management, she accepts the 

 situation pretty cheerfully. But merlins in high condition are 

 exceedingly hot-tempered, and often violent. No doubt the 

 double flight can be accomplished with them by the aid of 

 patience and tact. Mr. Freeman was able to fly his merlins 

 well in casts. And it is only with a cast that winter larks 

 could be attempted. Any falconer who could succeed in taking 

 them right through the winter would have accomplished a greater 

 feat than that of which Louis xni. was so proud. 



