114 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



LASHING THE AIR WITH POWERFUL WINGS, ULYSSES TAKES OFF ON A HUNT 



Dangling from his legs are the jesses, six-inch leather straps, which have just been disengaged 

 from the leash in Frank Craighead's hand. Though free to fly where he pleases, the trained duck 

 hawk always returns to his master. Ulysses has been a favorite of the authors for nearly four years 

 (pages 116 and 117). Usually they let their hawks return to the wild after one season of hunting. 



Others ; they are just born faster, or else 

 they try harder. Such an exceptionally 

 able hawk was Comet. 



Rabbit hunting was her favorite sport. 

 Often, as we tramped along through the 

 brush with Comet on our glove, her re- 

 markable eyes wi.iuld spot a rabbit wholly 

 invisible to us and she would be off. At 

 first, in her eagerness to make a kill, she 

 wotild swoop at her prey even in thick 

 undergrowth, hitting the bushes a terrific 

 blow and damaging her feathers. Later 

 she learned the trick of following her quarry 

 until it reached a clearing. 



Flying from tree to tree, Comet followed 

 one rabbit in this way for more than half 

 a mile and at last struck it in a small, open 



space. But Mr. Cottontail was wise and 

 quick. He dived through a narrow crotch 

 in a small locust tree, leaving his attacker 

 tightly wedged there. 



Sometimes, when shaken off, the hawk 

 would catch up to a rabbit on foot, her 

 long, powerful legs enabling her to make 

 surprising speed. Once the rabbit ducked 

 under a wire fence. The hawk, hotly pur- 

 suing, hit the wire and all but knocked 

 herself out. Another time she chased a 

 rabbit halfway down a groundhog burrow. 



Since a full-grown rabbit weighs three 

 times as much as a Cooper's hawk and can 

 kick out vigorously with all fours or plunge 

 into a brier patch, Comet took plenty of 

 punishment even when she made a direct hit 



