The Art and Practice of HawkingMichell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
History
The Art and Practice of Hawking
Michell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
Falconry
You must not, however, expect that every young falcon will be a good
grouse-hawk. Indeed, you must not expect many to be so. The quarry is a
difficult one, and until you have trained a good many partridge-hawks
you are not likely to make one for grouse. In partridge-hawking no very
great speed is wanted, if only the hawk will mount well and throw up
well. Partridges can be flushed much nearer, as a rule, to the hawk
than grouse. Although they are fast, especially up-wind, they are not
as fast as grouse, nor as wild. Nor perhaps, I may add, as perverse in
getting up at the place and time you like least, though both are clever
enough at choosing their time for making off. In an enclosed country,
if you do not kill your partridge at the first shot, he will often put
in at the next hedge, and there you may mark him and get him out. But
on an open moor the grouse generally go so far before putting in that
you cannot mark the place near enough to get them out quickly. Thus out
of a hundred eyess peregrines, probably more than 70 per cent. will,
in good hands, fly partridges very fairly, whereas out of a hundred
eyess falcons--leaving tiercels out of the account--you will not find
anything like fifty which are really good at the bigger quarry. Of
tiercels it would be rash to say that even 1 per cent. would fly well
at grouse. Of the falcons which fail some appear to be too lazy, and
others too slow. A good deal depends on the first few flights. If a
hawk has good luck on two or three occasions when she is first taken
out, and a young grouse gets up well within reach, the young hawk
will take heart, and, feeling assured that she can take the quarry,
will try hard and will improve. Choose, therefore, for a hawk that is
of doubtful courage the flights which seem likely to be the easiest.
Remember that an immense deal depends upon the conditions under which
you call upon your hawk to make her first flight at a grouse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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