A score-sheet thus kept gives at a glance an excellent idea of the performances of the hawks referred to. As their several scores are usually kept on the same page in successive lines, a comparison between them can be readily made at any time; and if a period of two or three weeks is taken, the best average made in the time will usually belong to the best hawk. If only a week or less is brought into the account, it may easily be that a very good hawk by a run of bad luck scores fewer kills and makes a lower average than a more moderate performer. The true test of merit is the ringing flights; and if these alone are considered, the result of an analysis will infallibly settle the question which is the better hawk. Thus in the score last above given, there is no difficulty in perceiving that Pearl, who killed three ringers out of five, and put in the other two, was a much better hawk during the short period under notice than Diamond, who killed two out of four and failed once to put his ringer in. The mere number of quarry killed in a season is not a conclusive test of merit; for it is more creditable to a hawk to kill one ringer than half a dozen ground larks. The greatest number of larks I have killed in one season with any hawk in single flights is 106. But Jubilee, who accomplished this feat, was certainly not so good as his sister, Queen, who killed 95 in the same time. Nor was the latter--I think--as good as Eva, who killed only about 65. The same method of scoring might be, with some adaptation, used for rook-hawks, and possibly for game-hawks. The short-winged varieties are usually flown at such a number of different quarry that another system would have to be employed. But in all cases the quarry-book should be a sort of diary in which may be traced the history of each hawk as she improved from time to time or fell off in merit. The less experience the falconer has the fuller he should make his notes. Both in making them and in referring to them questions will arise about which he is in doubt; and practice alone, or timely hints from a master in the art, will solve the difficulties. Any falconer who has kept diaries for any long period will find that at the end of it he has altered several of the methods which he practised at the beginning. It requires some time and trouble, no doubt, to write up the notes every day. But, as it has been before observed, no one can expect without a good deal of toil to become a successful falconer.