18 
EXPEBIMENTS IN HAWKING 
Having got ‘ gossy ’ quite accustomed to her surroundings, 
I began her training. My first care was to train her to come 
to me from her pole in the middle of the camp. She was 
tied to the pole by a cord about thirty feet long, and I would 
stand about ten feet away and hold out a fresh pigeon. She 
would get very excited, but would not leave her pole, so I 
had to go a trifle nearer — in fact approach until she left her 
pole and flew to my hand. When she did come I used to 
let her eat off my wrist. Continuing, the same method was 
employed until she did not hesitate to come to my hand up to 
a distance of forty yards. 
My next experiment was to let her go free. She immedi- 
ately flew up into a tree and began to look round for food. 
When I showed her a pigeon she came straight down from 
the tree to my hand ; in other words, her training should then 
have been completed. However, when I took her out to hawk 
wild Guinea fowl she did not fly at them, expecting, I suppose, 
to find one that had already been killed and half plucked 
for her. This showed that she was not used to killing these 
birds, and I should have had to spend considerable time in 
teaching her how to hunt. As this is harder than the first 
training and takes more time, I was reluctantly compelled 
to give it up. 
I feel quite certain that this bird would prove very useful 
if a little trouble were taken with her, had one the time to 
devote to it. 
Whilst training this goshawk I caught several other species. 
One was a light grey kestrel with pink eyes, which was useless 
except for rats and mice. Also a little brown hawk, the size of 
a merlin, with which I could do nothing as far as small birds 
were concerned, it feeding chiefly on mice, grasshoppers, 
&c. On the other hand, I caught a beautiful hawk, dark brown 
all over, a good deal larger than the British sparrow-hawk, 
but very similar. With care this bird should prove good, 
but she is very timid and cannot be treated as roughly as 
the goshawk. She is very fast, and should kill anything. 
Another bird I caught was of a grey colour on the back, 
with speckled breast, long yellow legs, yellow eyes, and having 
a black bar across the wings which showed in flight. I have 
