The Art and Practice of HawkingMichell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
History
The Art and Practice of Hawking
Michell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
Falconry
with this safeguard, for if a goshawk when only half trained does once
make off, it is rather a chance if you ever come up with her again.
In time your goshawk will be manned, and at least partly reclaimed.
She will look gladly on you when you come near, and jump or fly to
you on small encouragement for a small reward. If you tease her with
a morsel of meat, she will perhaps make that quaint crowing sound
which sounds like a mild protest against your hard-heartedness. When
you hold out your fist temptingly with a nice piece of food in it,
she will fly fifty yards to you at once. If now you have carried her
sufficiently throughout the process of reclaiming, she will not need
much to bring her into "yarak"; that is, into a state of eagerness for
killing quarry. A small dose of purgative medicine may be given, and
after twelve hours' fast, a small feed of very good food, without any
castings, and on the next day she may be entered.
Female goshawks are now usually trained chiefly for hares or rabbits.
Males should always be tried first at partridges or pheasants; and
if they are not good enough for such quarry, may be degraded to
water-hens and the like. The bagged quarry for entering should, in the
one case, be a rabbit, and in the other, a partridge or house-pigeon.
When a rabbit is used, a short, tough cane may be attached crosswise
to the end of a very short creance, which will serve to prevent the
quarry from disappearing bodily down a burrow. The partridge or pigeon
should not, of course, be a first-rate flier; or, at least, he may have
a longer creance to carry. Let the hawk take her pleasure on the first
live quarry killed; and next day give a very light feed, not later
than noon. On the third day she may be flown either at a better bagged
quarry or at a wild one. She should have a very good start for her
first real flight, and in a country free from burrows or impenetrable
covert. Then, if she only starts, she ought to kill in the case of a
rabbit. Nothing is more bloodthirsty than a young goshawk in yarak;
nor, in proportion to its size, has so much strength in its grasp. When
once the four long daggers with which each of her feet is armed are
imbedded in the head or neck of a rabbit or leveret, it is generally
all up with that unlucky beast. He may jump and kick and roll over
in his frantic efforts to escape. He may by the latter tactics force
the hawk to let go for a time, though this is by no means always the
result even of a complete somersault. But if the grip is thrown off,
the respite is short. Before the quarry can make use of what wits are
left to him, the pursuer is on him again--this time probably with a
still firmer hold than before. Though a rabbit is fast for a quadruped,
and the goshawk slow for a hawk, yet the advantage in pace is always
with the latter; and though she may be thrown out again and again by
the doubles of the quarry, yet in an open space speed must tell, if the
pursuer is in condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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