The Art and Practice of HawkingMichell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
History
The Art and Practice of Hawking
Michell, E. B. (Edward Blair)
Falconry
Even if the leash is not attached when the hawk gets away, or luckily
drops out of the swivel, there is no little danger that the jesses,
joined together at their ends by the swivel, will get hitched up, and
a similar disaster result. All accidents which occur in this way are
due to sheer carelessness. No hawk should ever be put upon the wing at
all unless her swivel has first been detached. Even the jesses, if they
have big slits in their ends, should be straightened out when they have
been freed from the swivel, so that there is no chance of their getting
hooked up on a nail or strong thorn.
On the first intelligence that a trained hawk has got loose, the
falconer should start in pursuit, provided with a dead lure in any
case, and, if the hawk was not sharp-set at the time, with a live
lure also. The more searchers that can be sent out, the better;
and these should make inquiries of every person they meet. Any of
them who are not competent to take up a hawk themselves may carry a
whistle, or pistol, or any signal agreed upon, by which they may call
up the falconer if they get tidings or a view of the truant. In the
latter case they must take care not to alarm the hawk or give her any
inducement to move about, for each time she moves she runs a fresh
risk of getting entangled and brought to grief. The search for a hawk
which has a leash or swivel attached is not altogether the same as
the search for one that has only her bells and jesses. For the fear
is now not that the runaway, having tasted the sweets of liberty,
will little by little acquire or resume the habits of a wild hawk,
but that, being still as ready as ever to come to the lure or the
fist, she will involuntarily commit suicide by hanging herself head
downwards before you have time to find her and interfere. Thus the
searchers will go about their work with all the speed consistent with
thoroughness, visiting first the places where there is most danger of a
fatal disaster, such as wire fencing, telegraph lines, and such bushy
or thorny trees as the lost hawk has ever been known to frequent. In an
open country loose hawks with their leashes on will sometimes escape
with their lives for days together, and even kill quarry, and keep
themselves in high condition. These, however, are the exceptions; and
in a wooded country such a fortunate issue to the adventure would be
unlikely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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