LOST HAWKS 223 



ous falconer may find that whenever one of his hawks is lost 

 several King Richards are reported in the field at the same 

 time, though not at the same place. 



After a hawk has been recaptured,, it behoves the captor 

 to consider what sort of preparation, if any, is required before 

 she is flown again. Much will depend, of course, upon the 

 character of the individual. A case has been very recently 

 mentioned in print, where a falcon lost in a flight at rooks 

 in the spring was only recaptured in autumn, after more than 

 twenty weeks' liberty, and yet was then nearly as tame as 

 when his holiday began. On the other hand, I have known a 

 hawk in one week become so wild and shy that the manning 

 of him and making him to the lure took nearly as long as if he 

 had just been caught on the passage. A day, or even two, 

 naturally has little enough effect in nullifying in an eyess the 

 lessons which she began in early life. Two' or three days' 

 flying at the lure, and a slight reduction in the quantity and 

 quality of her repasts, will generally make her obedient and 

 reliable enough. But with a passage hawk it is quite a different 

 story. Often you will have to hark back to some of the 

 practical arguments which you used before, when she was 

 being laboriously converted from a wild into a tame creature. 

 Washed meat may have to be put in requisition, and when the 

 moment does come to put her on the wing again in the field, 

 great endeavours should be made to give her a good start at her 

 quarry, so that she may again grow reconciled to her master's 

 mode of operations, and not go off to commence a fresh cam- 

 paign on her own account. 



Very often a hawk, especially if not a very first-class 

 performer, comes back from an outing a good deal improved, 

 not only in health, but in flying powers. Occasionally, how- 

 ever, I have known it to turn out otherwise. The danger is 

 with some hawks that while they are out they may learn to 

 run cunning. This abominable vice is, I think, rare in hawks, 

 especially in young ones. But I have known it in a jack-merlin 

 — not of my own training — as early as in August ; and it de- 

 veloped itself very badly in another jack which I lost for three 

 days in September, and which before he was left out had shown 

 no signs of it. The line adopted by the offender is to fly lazily 

 after the quarry, waiting for it to put in, when he marks the 

 place, and going straight to it jumps (if he can) upon the 

 fugitive. Sometimes the offence originates in double 1 flights, 

 when an inferior hawk, having allowed her partner to do all or 



