Many hawks have a tiresome way of jumping on and off the sides of the bath, and running round it--in fact, as Winchester boys say, "funking on the bank"--in complete oblivion of the fact that they are thereby hitching up their leashes. For such hawks it is best to take off the leash and substitute a creance three or four yards long, attaching the end of this to the block on which they are deposited at the side of the bath. All baths should be of a sufficient size. For gers they should be nearly a foot deep at least, and well over a yard in diameter. For the smallest jack-merlin they should be not less than four inches deep. A hawk will not fully enjoy her bath unless she can wade into it, if she chooses, up to her shoulders and over. In shallow water she is more or less uncomfortable. Like Alexander the Great, in the small world of antiquity, _æstuat infelix angusto in limite_; and her back and the nape of her neck are never properly wetted, however much she may splash about in the endeavour to throw the water over them. The bath should be tilted up, so that it is shallower at one end than the other, and the bather may get in, if she chooses, at the shallow end, and wade out as far as she likes towards the other. According to immemorial custom a few pebbles should be thrown in to lie on the floor of the bath. When the weather is very cold, a cup or two of hot water may be added, to take off the chill; and if the water used is taken from a deep and cool well it should be allowed to stand for some time in the sun before being put out for the hawks. Cemented basins in the ground make, of course, capital bathing-places. But they are troublesome to keep clean, and even to empty; and the surrounding edges are likely to become small quagmires. Perhaps the most serviceable bath is a common flat bedroom bath, sunk into a cavity in the ground, and removable at will. A pretty tall block or for short-winged hawks a bow-perch, should be placed near the bath, so that the bather, having finished her ablutions may at once jump on to it. In some places it is possible to indulge the hawks with a natural bath. When there is in the neighbourhood a stream of clean water with a sandy or gravelly bottom and shelving banks, the hawk may be carried down to a suitable part of the bank, the block set up, and the creance attached. She may be left on the block while the falconer retires to a short distance, and will come back, when bathed, to her post. After the bath, every hawk should remain out, bareheaded, for about an hour, in the sun, if possible. She will busy herself first in spreading her feathers to the sun and wind, and then in pluming and arranging them--a work exceedingly agreeable to those hawks which are particular about their own appearance.