Larks are in moult from the beginning of August, which is the earliest time that an eyess merlin can fly, till the middle of September--in some years till nearly the end. During this time, easy ones will mostly be found in the stubbles from which the corn has just been carried. Stronger and older larks may be found on the open down, but not in any great numbers. In years of drought, many will get to the fields where roots are growing. At these moulting larks, a merlin may be flown six or eight times in an afternoon. But what was said in the chapter on "Game-Hawking" about leaving off with a hard flight and a kill, is still more applicable to merlins than peregrines. These little hawks can in addition be flown in the early morning. But though I have done this occasionally, I doubt its being a good practice, and should prefer, if the weather is settled, to give stooping at the lure before breakfast, and wait till past midday for the field. But when the weather is bad you must go out when you can. The biggest score that I know to have been made in a day, flying both morning and evening, is ten, which Colonel Sanford killed with one of his merlins. I have myself killed ten in a day with a single hawk; but one of them was taken by her in a double flight, and therefore counts only for a half. Each of these hawks was a specially good-tempered and well-mannered hawk. For any merlin to take six larks single-handed in one day is a decided feat. The most I have known to be killed in any one year by a merlin single-handed is 106, the score of Jubilee in 1897; and the highest average I have known made is fifty-nine out of sixty-five flights--a percentage of more than 90 per cent. This was achieved by the merlin Sis, which made the extraordinary score of forty-one out of forty-two successive flights, the one miss being a ringer at which she was thrown off when the head of another lark was hardly down her throat--before she had shaken herself, or had time to look round. As soon as the larks have moulted, they become practically all ringers. Such larks have never yet been taken regularly. Usually the merlins begin to refuse them in the latter part of September. The latest lark I have killed was on a 7th of November. To take winter larks it would be necessary to have a cast of very first-rate merlins, which had never, upon any pretext, left a moulting lark. With these it is possible that a few might be taken; but after very long flights. And what of the unsuccessful flights? They would go so far that I fear the hawks must certainly be lost. A merlin which is good enough to take even one moulted lark is good enough to find her living anywhere; and I doubt if she would trouble to come back after a long unsuccessful flight for any reason, sentimental or otherwise!