Diamond's first item is the 1/4 credited to him for the part he played in the double flight with Ruby. He goes on by killing a ringer in the morning; and for his pains is rewarded with a good half of it, being then reserved for the last of the afternoon's flights, when the half-lark may have ceased to trouble his digestive organs. In the evening he puts in first a mounter and then a ringer, and then having with some difficulty and after a long flight killed a good mounter, is fed up just before it gets dark. On the morrow he falls in with two ground larks in succession, and kills them both. Hitherto, ever since the double flight with Ruby, in which he was outpaced, he has been doing well. Though not a fast hawk he has persevered and bested all his larks in the air, though he has put them in so far off that it was difficult to find them. But now he is to disgrace himself by showing the white feather. He starts at a good ringer, but, finding it too fast for him, comes back humbly to the lure. The little (a), which is a mark of honour when seen under a kill, is a terrible blemish to a score when found under a "duck's egg"--showing that not the quarry but the hawk has been beaten in the air. After this sad exhibition Diamond is fed up, and examined to see whether by some mistake he has perchance been allowed to get thin. If he has, there is an excuse for his poltroonery. Anyhow he will be well fed now, and if he does not fly better to-morrow physicking may be advisable. A medical council must be held over his case. On the next day, however, he re-establishes his character. Lighting at the first trial upon a ringer, he sticks to it like a man, puts it in, and then takes it cleverly enough. Of course after this success, following upon the fiasco of yesterday, he is at once fed up. Peeping a little behind the scenes we may, it is true, suspect that the ringer, though quite properly marked so in the score-sheet, would not have figured as such if Pearl had had to deal with him instead of Diamond. He would have tried to take the air, certainly, and mounted as if intending to go up in circles. But Pearl would have been up to him before he completed the first ring, and from that moment, keeping the upper hand of him, she would have given him trouble enough to shift from her stoops without nursing any such ambition as to fly right away from her.