THE SPARROW-HAWK 165 



the open, and we adjourn there, full of hopes. The tactics 

 adopted by this blackrobed gentleman are simple, but ingenious 

 and effective. They consist of flopping down, as the hawk gets 

 quite near, into a thick bunch of turnip leaves, and, when once 

 on the ground, doubling round the stalks so as to elude the 

 hawk, which, of course, dives into the damp covert at the same 

 place where the quarry disappeared. Then when the hawk's 

 head is safe behind the leafy screen of verdure, the chance 

 comes of jumping up and slipping off unseen. Twice does Lady 

 Macbeth detect him in the act of thus slinking off; but she is 

 thrown out again by the same stratagem, and on the third 

 occasion the fugitive gets off unseen by his persecutor, though 

 in full sight of us, and also of Sandy, who yelps demoniacally, 

 either from pure vexation, or perhaps in the hope of attracting 

 the attention of his friend and ally. Well, of course, we lose 

 that fellow, who goes off joyously over the hedge and the next 

 field, glorying, like Ulysses, in the success of his wiles. More 

 valuable to magpie and blackbird than the rather limited allow- 

 ance of wing-power with which Nature has provided them, is 

 the considerable supply of brains by which the balance is 

 made up. 



At last, however, we get a bit of luck, which indeed makes 

 it rather a red-letter day for Lady Macbeth, for as we beat 

 along one of the least likely-looking hedge-rows, more for the 

 sake of doing the proper thing than with a hope of finding 

 anything, there is a huge flurry and bustle almost under the 

 feet of our falconer, and up gets a single partridge, beating the 

 air noisily with broad, round wings as he gets clear of the 

 overgrown ditch. When he is once fairly on the wing he will 

 soon put on a pace nearly, if not quite, equal to any that our 

 hawk can attain to. That is, he " would " rather than he " will," 

 for we have not been idle all this time. On the contrary, Lady 

 Macbeth, somewhat startled at first, spreads her wings, and at 

 once shoots upwards, as if with a view to see what is the matter. 

 Then, pulling herself together as she takes in the situation, she 

 makes a sort of half-turn in the air, comes down in a slanting 

 course, half stooping and half flying, and before the partridge 

 has gone forty yards, strikes him full on the back with both 

 feet. One, at least, of the eight sharp claws hold, and down 

 they come with a whack on the brown earth of the ploughed 

 field, where they seem almost to roll over one another in the 

 excitement of the fray which has still to be fought out. For a 

 real set-to it is, of the rough-and-tumble order. The hawk's 



