The Art and Practice of HawkingMichell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
History
The Art and Practice of Hawking
Michell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
Falconry
Grouse and black-game hawking differ in no important particular from
partridge-hawking; and, generally speaking, what is to be said about
the latter may be said with equal truth of the other two. It should be
mentioned, however, that falcons, from their superior strength, are
much to be preferred for the flight at the bigger quarry. Although
there have been cases where tiercels have done well at grouse,
these are exceptional. Usually they are averse to tackling so heavy
a quarry, and, of course, still more reluctant to take the field
against blackcock. They are, however, perfectly equal to the flight at
partridges. Some falconers have even professed to prefer them for this
flight to their sisters. This, however, was not the view taken in the
classic age of falconry; and if a fair comparison is made the falcon
will be found to be at least as good for the stubble-fields, while
vastly superior on the moors. Here again the method of training and
working, whether the one sex or the other is used, is identically the
same.
In game-hawking, the eyess is much more on even terms with the passager
than in the flight out of the hood at rooks and larger quarry. In fact,
some of the very best and deadliest grouse-hawks in modern times have
come from the nest to the falconer's hands. The records of the Old
Hawking Club show a quite exceptionally brilliant score made by one of
their eyesses, Parachute, who took no less than fifty-seven grouse in
one season, heading the list of that year's performances on the Club
moor. In the same year, 1882, Vesta, an eyess of her first season,
killed as many as forty-three grouse. Yet it must not be inferred from
this that every nestling is as likely to kill grouse or partridges
as well as a passage hawk. It is rarely that the latter does not fly
at least creditably, when trained, whereas with eyesses the general
rule is rather the other way. A really first-rate performer is amongst
eyesses the exception, however well they have been hacked and trained.
On the other hand, the making of the eyess to this flight is beset by
few of the difficulties which trouble him who would train a wild-caught
hawk to it. It has been said already that a passage hawk, waiting on at
any height, must naturally be more apt to check at passing birds than
an eyess. The latter has been, or ought to have been, reserved, from
her youth up, for the one flight for which she was specially destined
by her owner; whereas the other, from her youth up, until captured, has
been accustomed to fly at whatever happened to be most ready to hand.
There is, too, generally a special reason why the passage hawk should
be apt, when expected to wait on for game, to check at any rook which
may be in sight. As a rule she has come into the trainer's hands in the
late autumn, has been deliberately entered by him at rooks in early
spring, and has flown them with his entire approbation for some weeks.
No wonder, then, that if on the twelfth of August a rook comes past she
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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