Occasionally it happens that without any apparent reason an eyess drops out some of her nestling feathers almost as soon as they have come fully down, or, as the old falconers termed it, as soon as she is "summed." I have known a jack-merlin, well hacked and fully trained, and in first-rate condition, drop his two deck feathers while sitting quietly on the pole-cadge on the way to be flown in the field, and have seen him just afterwards fly as well as ever, and give a good account of a ringing lark. When any such little mishap occurs the hawk must of course be kept as high fed and fat as he can be consistently with proper obedience. The jack I speak of found himself, in consequence of his misfortune, promoted to a position of special favour among his fellows. An extra allowance of the best sort of food was daily permitted to him. When he flew well--which, by the way, he always did--he had nearly as much as he liked to eat. And when by reason of this very high feeding he refused to come to the dead lure, a lark was generally walked up by beaters driving towards him as he sat on a rick, so that he might be indulged with the flight for which his vain little soul was longing. Or, if this could not be done, he was left on his self-chosen perch until one of the other hawks went up after a ringing lark, when he would come up like a meteor across the sky, and join in, sometimes to the great chagrin of the other hawk, which had started under the impression that she was to have the field to herself. In due course the new feathers grew down, having the pretty blue-grey hue of the adult plumage, and thus contrasting conspicuously with the five brown feathers on either side of them. Before the lark season was over they were fully down; and my lord was quite a curiosity, looking rather as if some waggish under-falconer had imped the two middle feathers of his tail with a couple of wood-pigeon's feathers instead of the proper ones.