When your short-winged hawk has been taken up from hack, or at anyrate when she is to be taken in hand, her trainer must set to work very seriously and very promptly at the business of reclamation. This is not, it is true, different at first in character from that required for the long-winged hawks. But it is often different in degree; for personal attention and almost perpetual care are a necessity. Unless you can contrive to have her "waked," you will have a tough job with her. Anyhow, she must be carried almost all day. Whether eyess or wild-caught, she should be treated very much like a haggard peregrine. Almost superhuman efforts will be required in some cases before she can be manned; yet manned she must be, and that more thoroughly than a long-winged hawk, before you can hope to do much with her. It required a Sir John Sebright to kill a partridge with a sparrow-hawk ten days after she was caught; and it would be still more difficult to kill a blackbird in that time. That is, at least, to first kill it, and then take up the hawk! For carrying is a vice to which the short-winged are naturally disposed, though they are not so bad in this respect as merlins or hobbies. In manning a short-winged hawk it will generally be found better to work very hard for a few days than to work only moderately hard for a much longer time. In fact, a less amount of attention, if concentrated upon the pupil at first, will do more than a much greater share applied to her in smaller doses. It is not usual to hood sparrow-hawks much after the time when they are being reclaimed. But they should be kept, like all other hawks, accustomed to being hooded, and not by any means allowed to become hood-shy. And while the business of reclamation lasts it is a good plan to tie the tail. This is done by making a half-knot round the shaft of the outer feather, nearly half-way down, passing the ends over and under the tail, and making a double knot of them on the shaft of the outer feather on the other side. When the hawk bathes the thread is nearly sure to come off; and when she is dry you can put on another. If it stays on, no harm is done. This simple device ensures the tail feathers against any accident which might otherwise occur while she is being handled by the trainer, and perhaps by more or less incompetent assistants. Later on it will be tried hard enough! Some falconers--and good ones, too--despair of saving it for long; but you need not sacrifice it sooner than you have any real occasion. The tail is just as much--or as little--use to the hawk while she is being manned--or, for that matter, when she is flying to the fist--whether it is tied up or not; and in the former state it can come to no harm. Let the hawk at least take her first quarry with undamaged feathers. A moderate degree of coping will be found permissible for short-winged hawks, although it is hardly orthodox to say so. No doubt blunt claws would be detrimental