272 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING 



refused — or at least left the lark in the air. Possibly this was 

 because she was flown too soon after the last flight. But the 

 disgrace remains recorded against her name in the quarry- 

 book. 



To guard against this sad catastrophe you must encourage 

 your hawk ; that is, you must keep up her courage, which is 

 the thing most severely tested in a ringing flight. You must 

 feed her well ; yet keep her digestion in perfect order. And 

 you must strengthen her muscles by constant hard exercise. 

 It is not enough for her to go out and kill a couple of indifferent 

 rooks in two or three short easy flights. If there is not enough 

 good quarry — difficult quarry — to be found for her, you can 

 give her a good spell of stooping at the lure, or in the case of 

 a game-hawk, a long waiting on when the wind is highest, pro- 

 bably about midday. She must have tirings galore. And if 

 she has refused once, fly her sharp-set the next time. Hawks will 

 refuse through being too fat as well as through being too lean. 

 Avoid, if possible, giving your best hawks bad quarry, or your 

 worst hawks any that are too good. The former may refuse a 

 specially good one because they are accustomed to take duffers, 

 and the latter may refuse because they have not yet gained con- 

 fidence in their own powers. Goshawks are capricious creatures ; 

 they will refuse a leveret, and half an hour later fly well at a 

 full-grown hare Other hawks may refuse if flown too early in 

 the day, and yet do a fine performance if tried again later on. 

 With a hawk that persistently refuses you should try every 

 remedy that your ingenuity will suggest as likely to inspire her 

 with a proper sense of her duty. Try feeding up ; try flying 

 her very hungry. Physic her for liver, with one prescription after 

 another. And if all fail, give the hawk away, or, better still, 

 cast her loose in an open country where the keepers don't shoot 

 hawks. She then will have the choice between working and starv- 

 ing ; and she will very soon know how to decide the question. 



The last, and in one way the most serious, vice which has to 

 be referred to, is that of " running cunning." I do not think it 

 is common, if even it prevails at all among passage hawks ; and 

 what there is to be said about it in the case of eyesses, has been 

 said in the chapter on Lost Hawks, a propos of Ruy Lopez. 



We have thus a list of seven deadly sins, or so-called sins, 

 to which trained hawks are prone — carrying (better called lift- 

 ing), refusing, checking, perching, hood-shyness, screaming, and 

 running cunning. There are a few minor faults which hardly 

 amount to more than peccadilloes, and deserve only a passing 



