Very often a hawk, especially if not a very first-class performer, comes back from an outing a good deal improved, not only in health, but in flying powers. Occasionally, however, I have known it to turn out otherwise. The danger is with some hawks that while they are out they may learn to run cunning. This abominable vice is, I think, rare in hawks, especially in young ones. But I have known it in a jack-merlin--not of my own training--as early as in August; and it developed itself very badly in another jack which I lost for three days in September, and which before he was left out had shown no signs of it. The line adopted by the offender is to fly lazily after the quarry, waiting for it to put in, when he marks the place, and going straight to it jumps (if he can) upon the fugitive. Sometimes the offence originates in double flights, when an inferior hawk, having allowed her partner to do all or most of the work, cuts in at the finish and secures the quarry. But it is more rare in merlins than in jacks, which seem to me the most prone of any hawks to this vice. A game-hawk has, of course, little or no temptation to indulge in it, and a rook-hawk would spoil her own game by doing so, as she cannot follow into covert. The fault, when once developed, is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to entirely cure. Double flights should be entirely eschewed; and when the hawk has flown cunning and failed she may be left where she is, unlured and unfed, until later in the day, and then flown again and again until she tries harder. Wild hawks (and trained ones, if long left out) often fall into a habit of picking their flights, _i.e._ starting at a quarry, and, if they find it a good one, turning back and waiting for an easier chance. On the whole, therefore, if only for this reason, I am averse to leaving out a trained hawk longer than is absolutely unavoidable. CHAPTER XVI Accidents and Maladies