falcon, and on they go at slower pace to beat for fresh game—and lo! flip-flap, there rises the first woodcock of the season. Ho! mark him—mark him down, good forester—we must not miss that fellow—the very prince of game—the king he would be, save that gray heronshaw of right has old claim to the throne of falconrie. Lo! there, my masters, he is down—down in that gulley’s bank where the broom and the brachens feather the sunny slope, and the small streamlet hardly murmurs among the long rank grasses that seem almost to choke its mossy runnel. Quick! quick! unhood the lanner—the young and speckle-breasted lanner!—cast off the old gray-headed jerfalcon—soh, Diamond, my brave bird! mark his quick glancing eye and his proud crest, soh! cast him off and he will wheel around our heads nor leave us till we flush the woodcock. No! no! hold the young lanner hard, let him not fly, he is too mettlesome and proud of wing to trust to—and couple all the dogs up, except the stanch red setter. Now we will steal on him up wind and give him every chance—best cross the gully here, fair dames, for it is something deep and boggy, and if ye were to brave it in the fury of the gallop you might be mired for your pains. That bird will show you sport, be sure of it, for lo! the field beyond is thickly set with stunted thorns and tufts of alder bushes, if your hawks be not keen of sight, and quick of wing too, be sure that he will dodge them, and if he reach yon hill-side only, all covered as it is with evergreen, dense holly brakes, and thick oak saplings, he is as safe there in that covert as though he were a thousand leagues away, in some deep glen of the wild Atlas mountains. Lo! there he goes, the gray hawk after him—by heaven! in fair speed he outstrips the jerfalcon, he does not condescend even to dodge or double, but flies wild and high toward the purple moorland, and there _we_ cannot follow him. Ride, De Vaux; gallop for your life—cut in, cut in between the bird and that near ridge—soh! bravely done, black charger—now cast the lanner loose! so! that will turn him. See! he has turned and now he must work for it—the angle he has made has brought old Diamond up against his weather wing—now! he will strike—now! now! but lo! the wary bird has dodged, and the hawk, who had soared and was in act of pouncing, checked his fleet pinion and turned after him—how swift he flies dead in the wind’s eye—and the wind is rising, he cannot face it now—tack and tack, how he twists—how cleverly he beats to windward, but now the odds are terribly against him, the cunning falcons have divided, and are now flying sharply to cut him off, one at each termination of his tacks—the lanner has outstripped him. Whoop! Robin, whoop!—Soh! call him up the wind—up the wind, falconer, or he will miss his stroke. There! there he towers up! up! in airy circles—he poises his broad wing—he swoops—alack, poor woodcock! but no! he has—by Pan the god of hunters—he has missed his cast—no swallow ever