Apoplexy is no doubt the disorder most commonly fatal to trained hawks of the short-winged varieties. It was called by the ancients the falling evil, and it has carried off quite suddenly many a first-rate goshawk almost without any warning at all. And it is probably more to be feared in these days when the use of washed meat has been so generally abandoned. The cause of this effusion of blood on the brain is over-fulness of body or an accumulation of internal fat; and in order to guard against it care should be taken to avoid overfeeding a hawk with strong, heating, or fattening viands. Merlins are also very subject to apoplexy when short of exercise, and peregrines are by no means exempt from it. When any hawk is fat or full-blooded, any exposure to a hot sun, or any violent or unaccustomed exercise, or bating off and hanging head downwards, may cause a determination of blood to the brain; and death will follow without the chance of even attempting a cure. It is well, therefore, especially when any hawk is not taking daily exercise, and plenty of it, not only to avoid overfeeding, but also from time to time to give a purge and an emetic. One of the simplest prescriptions is lard or butter, well washed, and then steeped in rose-water, and given with a little powdered sugar. Apostume of the head is called by Turbervile a "monstrous accident," and a "very grievous evil," and said by him to be infectious. "It is discerned by ye swelling of ye hawke's eyes, by the moysture which sundrie tymes issueth and distilleth from the eares, and often eake by evyll savoure and smell of the apostume." The invalid is inert, and cares little for her food, and will not pull at her tirings. The remedies he recommends are exceptionally commonplace. First, butter, well washed in rose-water, with honey of roses and powdered sugar. Then afterwards, for the relief of her poor head, rue, 4 grains; Aloes Epatie, 2 drams; saffron, 1 scruple, to be finely powdered and made into a pill with honey of roses. If the ear is stopped up, clear it with lint on a silver bodkin or needle, and, having infused warm oil of sweet almonds, stop it with another piece of lint. Which failing of success, he gives directions for cauterising, for which the original, or some surgeon, should be consulted. Another sort of swelling in the head which affects the nares as well as the eyes, and is nothing else but a catarrh, may, it seems, often be cured by a pill made of agaric, 2 scruples; cinnamon, 1; liquorice, 1, powdered and mixed with honey of roses. The sufferer should be made to sneeze by giving her--not snuff, as one might expect, but pepper, cloves, and mustard-seed, powdered, and blown into the nares through a quill, or rubbed on to the nares and palate. After these, or indeed any doses have been administered, it is well to carry the hawk on the fist till they have taken effect.