FALCONRY, THE SPORT OF KINGS 



459 



Drawing by Louis Agassiz Fuertes 



DRAWING OF THE FOOT OF A GOSHAWK (NATURAL SIZE) 



The Goshawk kills its prey by clutching, and driving its great talons into its victim's 

 vitals, not releasing its hold until the quarry ceases to struggle (see Color Plate V and text, 

 page 4S8). 



These, hawks are worked along hedge- 

 rows or in woods, only being used in open 

 ground on hares, rabbits, or pheasants. 

 In thick cover they perch hard by, watch- 

 ing for the instant the quarry may be put 

 out by dogs or beaters. 



The short-wings are very much more 

 intent on their game than are the falcons, 

 and even in a wild state have been known 

 to chase fowls into the farmer's kitchen 

 and kill there. Dr. Fisher records an 

 amusing instance in which a goshawk 

 dashed in and seized a fowl which had 

 that instant been killed by a farmer, drag- 

 ging it only a few rods before starting to 

 deplume it. In another case, a hawk pur- 

 sued its quarry through the kitchen of a 

 farm-house into a bedroom and there 

 made its kill under the bed ! 



While the strikes of this hawk are very 

 hard and impetuous, they are usually 

 short, and do not result in the exhaus- 

 tion that follows a good flight by a falcon. 

 Thus they may be flown many times in 

 a day, and there is the record of old 

 "Gaiety Gal," who was flown at 17 hares 

 in one morning, trussing to all and killing 

 clean all but the last, which, being excep- 

 tionally strong and the hawk naturally 

 weary, got away after a struggle. Sir 

 Henry Boynton's "Red Queen" killed 24 

 rabbits in one day. 



There is something almost devilish 

 about the fury of a goshawk's strike. 

 Her yellow or orange eye, the pupil con- 

 centrated to a cold point, fairly burns 

 with ferocity, and the clutch of her awful 

 foot is such that virtually no amount of 

 twisting or somersaulting on the part of 

 the hare or rabbit can dislodge the great 

 piercing hooks. 



As an example of the goshawk's sin- 

 gle - mindedness when in pursuit of 

 quarry, Lascelles tells of one which drove 

 impetuously downhill at a rabbit. As the 

 quarry leaped four feet in the air to 

 avoid the stroke which grazed -it, the 

 hawk turned over and caught it from 

 underneath while in the air, "rolling af- 

 terward down a steep bank head over 

 heels, but never leaving go her hold." 



"It is not uncommon," continues this 

 observer, "to see a rabbit captured at the 

 mouth of a burrow, and hawk and all 

 disappear under ground ; but when she is 

 lifted out, however much she is knocked 

 about, the rabbit is in her foot." 



THE SPARROWHAWK HAS MANY 

 ADMIRERS 



The sparrowhawk is reclaimed and 

 trained in much the same manner as 

 other hawks, and her tactics are almost, 

 exactly those of her big relative. No 



