To show what goshawks will do when well worked, I may mention that Mr. St. Quintin's falconer (now the head falconer of the Old Hawking Club) took out his female goshawk in November 1885, and gave her seventeen chances at rabbits lying out in the grass. She caught them all, but being a bit blown, let the last one go. Sir Henry Boynton's goshawk, Red Queen, on 2nd December 1895, killed as many as twenty-four rabbits in one day. * * * * * The illustration is a portrait of "Gaiety Gal," the goshawk which, while she was owned by Mr. Arthur Newall and flown by him, killed in one season fifty-five hares, nineteen rabbits, two pheasants, one partridge, one wood-pigeon, one Norfolk plover, one landrail--total, eighty head. This fine hawk was afterwards sold for £20; and the vendor always considered that he had been a loser by the bargain. CHAPTER XII The Sparrow-Hawk There is so little difference between the training of the goshawk and that of the sparrow-hawk, that it is unnecessary to give any special directions for the latter. But, just as the merlin is a more delicate feeder and a more delicate subject than the peregrine, so it must be remembered that the diet and treatment of the smaller short-winged hawk must be more _recherché_ than that of the larger. This is more especially true of the musket, or male sparrow-hawk, which is very much smaller than his sister, and is in many respects a kind of miniature hawk. Nothing in the shape of hard or tough meat must ever be given to him. No long fasts, no hardships. He must be always something of a spoilt child. And after he has once been manned, the more he is petted and pampered the better in most cases he will become. As far as my experience goes, he has a better temper, and is more easily reclaimed than his bigger sisters; but I have heard other falconers express a contrary opinion. Both the ladies and gentlemen, however, excluding exceptional cases, are, for a time at least, about as troublesome creatures as ever wore a good pair of wings. For the first few days after they are captured, or taken up from hack, it seems quite impossible to make anything of them. The beginner, unless he is of a most sanguine temperament, may be excused for despairing of the prospect of ever reducing them to obedience, and far more of ever using them profitably in the field. And, to tell the truth, if he has had no previous experience with a more docile kind of hawk, he seldom does succeed.