LOUD LILFORD ON BIRDS IN THE LILFORD AVIARIES. 129 
of which lie drove into covered drains, sheep-folds, sheds, and 
ditches ; for this reason he was practically useless from a falconer’s 
point of view, but to see him fly was a “joy for ever” to any one 
capable of appreciating the perfections of a Falcon. Although 
wo put several of the females on wing, I had never any op- 
portunity of flying them at winged quarry, as our only available 
field near Lilford for Rook-liawking was several miles distant, and 
has now been for many years past enclosed ; but as, from the 
miserable condition of their plumage on arrival, we had to keep 
them idle till they had moulted, I do not think that even if we 
had a good hawking country close at hand, we should ever have 
done much good with them. I never attempted to fly these noble 
birds at ground-game, as I considered it beneath their hereditary 
dignity to employ them on Goshawk’s work. The Greenlander 
is not an easy bird to keep in good condition, at least such has 
been my personal experience with them ; but it is more than 
probable that the digestive powers of the birds of this species 
that reach this country may have been severely tried by improper 
food and want of care during their voyages; be this as it may, 
I have found them especially liable to cramp, swelled feet, and 
that scourge known to falconers as “the frounce : ” beef must only 
bo given occasionally and in small quantity; my birds always 
seemed to thrive better upon Rooks, Waterhens, and Pucks’ heads 
than upon more delicate food ; but about four years is the longest 
period for which I have ever succeeded in keeping a Greenlander. 
An old Perthshire gamekeeper, formerly in my service in the 
neighbouring county of Inverness, told me that he had frequently 
seen, and on several occasions shot or trapped, great white Falcons 
in the winter months in the neighbourhood of Rannoch and Loch 
Tummel ; one of these, birds shot near Foss on this latter loch, in 
the early spring of 1862 , by this informant whilst in the service 
of my brother-in-law, was sent by its destroyer to Mr. Paton, the 
well-known gunmaker, in whose shop at Perth I discovered it in 
the following year ; it was a young male, fairly well stuffed, and 
mounted in a case with a female of the same species stuffed, as 
Mr. Paton informed me, from a foreign skin. 
I had the pleasure of presenting the case containing these 
birds to my excellent friend and teacher in falconry, the late 
E. Clough JNewcome, of Fcltwcll, the first practical falconer 
k 2 
