In hot and sunny weather some caution is advisable in flying hawks to the lure, as well as in the field. For when in high condition, even if they are hungry, they are sometimes disposed to go soaring, and, as it were, forgetting all about mundane affairs, disappear in airy circles down-wind. Eyesses will, it is true, generally come back when they are tired of soaring. They are reminded, sooner or later, by an internal feeling that there is such a thing as a garnished lure in the foreground. But suppose a passage peregrine, after stretching her wings for five minutes at a height of a thousand feet, to catch sight of a wood-pigeon crossing the open down. It would be almost too much to expect that she should resist the temptation. In the cool of the day, morning and evening, hawks very seldom soar if they are sharp-set, and have had the chance of a bath most fine days. It is from nine to four o'clock in summer that there is the most risk of it; and hobbies, which are greatly addicted to the habit, should not be flown during these hours in fine weather, unless the owner is prepared to wait twenty minutes, or even longer, for my lord or my lady to finish airing herself in the sky. Very special care must be taken of all hawks during the migration season--that is, for some weeks after the latter part of September and the beginning of April. At the former period, indeed, it is barely safe to let hobbies wait on at all; and the steadiest peregrines and merlins are apt to feel more or less strongly the restlessness born of migratory instincts. Many favourite hawks which seemed a few days ago to be as safe as tame cats, have been known at migrating time to develop quite suddenly an ungovernable wish to travel, and have cleared for foreign parts when they had an opportunity, without a moment's warning or a word of leave-taking. Each hawk, after flying to the lure, will be immediately fed up, usually on the way back to the hawk-house or the lawn. As a rule, the earlier a hawk can be fed up the better, for she will be the sooner ready for the field on the next day. Moreover, she will fly better, probably, to the lure if she is aware that that ordeal is often the precursor of a solid meal. The rather common practice of feeding all the hawks at about the same hour--generally late in the day--has nothing that I ever heard of to recommend it. How can a hawk which habitually dines at six o'clock or later be expected to be keen or to fly well when thrown off at her quarry at three or four o'clock? If a peregrine, when it has been finally decided not to fly her in the field that day, is fed at about eleven o'clock, she will be fit to fly on the morrow at any time after noon. The falconer should note in what order his hawks are fed, so that on the next day, unless any special circumstances prevent it, those which have been fasting the longest should be flown the first.