190 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



when it is intended to train passage hawks in any place, it must 

 always be possible to darken artificially a part of the room, so 

 that hawks can sit there bareheaded on the perch after castings 

 have been given. 



Another article which may in a sense be included in the 

 category of diet, is one which will somewhat surprise the reader 

 who has heard nothing about falconry before. This is " rangle," 

 which is nothing more nor less than small stones or pebbles, 

 swallowed after the manner of castings, and with a similar 

 purpose and effect. After being taken into the crop these 

 exceedingly indigestible delicacies — popularly supposed to be 

 dear to ostriches only — collect around themselves by some 

 special process of attraction a quantity of that same mucus 

 which is apt to accumulate in a hawk's internal organism. 

 When afterwards they are thrown up — for not even the greediest 

 goshawk will actually assimilate stones — they come up with 

 this oily coating adhering to them, having operated as a sort of 

 emetic, without any of the disagreeable concomitants of physick- 

 ing with drugs. Why the purpose for which rangle is given 

 cannot be as effectually accomplished by simple castings of 

 feather or fur, I am afraid I cannot explain ; but these latter 

 do not appear to be able to clear the hawk's inside of the par- 

 ticular kind of superfluous humours which are extracted by the 

 harder substance. Possibly the weight of pebbles causes them 

 to descend farther into the crop, and thus clear it more thoroughly 

 than any such light material as can be given by way of castings. 

 For the small hawks rangle may be given by scattering a few 

 pinches of rather fine gravel on the meat at which they are 

 picking. It is a good plan also to scatter about, close to the 

 blocks of any hawks for which a dose of this kind is thought 

 good, a few stones of a round smooth shape, varying in size 

 from that of a horse-bean for a falcon, to that of a sweet-pea seed 

 for a jack-merlin. The patient often knows instinctively when 

 such a dose is likely to do her good, and swallows one or more 

 of the stones voluntarily. If she does not, and it is thought 

 advisable that she should be dosed whether she likes it or not, 

 the hawk may be cast, and the tasteless pill slipped into her 

 mouth, and pushed down with a small stick. Latham, who 

 was a great stickler for rangle, tells a quaint story of a hawk 

 which he owned. He stuffed her with sixteen stones, which 

 she threw up in due course. The stones were picked up and 

 washed, and put down again near the hawk's block on the fol- 

 lowing evening. And every day for a month successively this 



