LOST HAWKS 215 



or the fist, she will involuntarily commit suicide by hanging 

 herself head downwards before you have time to find her and 

 interfere. Thus the searchers will go about their work with all 

 the speed consistent with thoroughness, visiting first the places 

 where there is most danger of a fatal disaster, such as wire 

 fencing, telegraph lines, and such bushy or thorny trees as 

 the lost hawk has ever been known to frequent. In an open 

 country loose hawks with their leashes on will sometimes escape 

 with their lives for days together, and even kill quarry, and 

 keep themselves in high condition. These, however, are the 

 exceptions ; and in a wooded country such a fortunate issue to 

 the adventure would be unlikely. 



When the loss of a hawk has occurred in consequence of her 

 having killed out of sight, and gorged herself before she could 

 be discovered, the chances are that she will remain for the night 

 in the neighbourhood of the place where she flew the quarry 

 upon which she dined. A visit will be paid, therefore, next 

 morning at daybreak to this part of the country ; and the 

 falconer must not assume that if he fails to find quickly the 

 object of his search she is to be looked for somewhere else. For 

 it is unlikely, wherever she is, that she will pay any attention 

 to him or his lure until she has cast. This she may not do, 

 especially if it was late in the previous day when she was lost, 

 until some hours after a spring or summer sunrise. Conse- 

 quently, even if the searcher gets away from this most likely spot, 

 and explores the plantations for considerable distances round 

 about, he should return to it from time to time, on the chance 

 that she has been there all the while, waiting till her appetite 

 came before making her presence known. As the day grows 

 older, the radius within which the search is continued may 

 be indefinitely enlarged. Every labourer going to his work, 

 every farmer going his rounds, every shepherd walking towards 

 his fold, should be interrogated when met, and asked, if they see 

 anything of the lost hawk, to report it in some way. The neigh- 

 bouring keepers may be warned, although probably they will 

 long before this have been informed that trained hawks are in 

 the neighbourhood. A man will hardly fly his hawks in a part 

 of the world where he does not know that the keepers are to 

 be relied upon. 



When the hawk has been lost through raking away or check- 

 ing at chance quarry, the work of finding her necessitates often 

 very great exertions and fatigue. There is nothing particularly 

 unusual in the fact of a passage peregrine wandering off in an 



