In the golden age of falconry great weight was attached to the possession of good lungs. The "falconer's voice," for which Juliet fondly wished, was used not only to lure the tassel-gentle back again, but to encourage him in his efforts, and to cheer his successful or brilliant strokes. A modern trainer is not so demonstrative. We have--wrongly, I think--almost abandoned the use of calls and cheers to animate our winged friends in the air. But even now a loud voice is a merit in a falconer, if only as enabling him from afar to warn the field and any chance intruders not to meddle with a flight or run in to a hawk that has killed. Those few who still make a practice of "giving their voice" to their hawks are, I think, well repaid for their trouble. For no one can doubt how attentive hawks are to sounds, especially of the human voice, or how thoroughly they become convinced, when well handled, that they and their followers on foot or horseback, and the dogs, when there are any, are all friends and comrades engaged, each in his different way, in the same campaign against the same quarry. As the huntsman in his kennels, and the trainer in his stables, so the good falconer should take a pride in his mews, or in the place, whatever he calls it, where his hawks are lodged. We have abandoned for the most part the old name of mews--long ago degraded to a new signification--and with it the fashion of building proper quarters for the accommodation of our feathered friends. The modern hawk-house is often a poor substitute for the substantial buildings which our ancestors called mews. Nowadays almost any outhouse seems to be thought good enough for the purpose; and the trained hawks of several amateurs who are justly reputed good falconers are housed in what are little more than shanties, barely able to keep out the rain and wind, and not at all proof against that insidious enemy, the damp. There can be no doubt that the excessive prevalence in our times of the horrible disorder called "croaks" is largely due to the want of care with which our hawks are housed in winter.