It is for many reasons desirable that the trainer should go personally to the place where the eyrie is, and either himself assist in taking the young birds, or at least be ready to receive them within a few hours, and give them their first feed. Unfortunately, most hawk-dealers and many gamekeepers have a rooted objection to this plan, and prefer to muddle about with the hawks themselves, not sending them off to the purchaser until they have already unwittingly done them more or less injury, in one way or another. They either are, or pretend to be, unable to understand or to believe that an eyess delivered immediately into the trainer's hand is worth at least 25 per cent. more to him than one which has been messed about by unskilled hands, and racketed about in a train for several hours. This stupid prejudice of the captors and vendors is often productive of the deplorable blemish called hunger-streaks, which weakens every important feather in the hawk's body, and to some extent checks and stunts her whole bodily growth and energy, just at the time when it is most desirable that they should be steadily maintained and developed. A hunger-streak is caused whenever a young hawk has been allowed to grow unreasonably hungry. The result is that that part of the whole web and shaft of each feather which is growing out of the body at the time is deformed through want of proper nourishment, and bears on it ever afterwards a cross line like a blight, so that the feather looks as if a sharp razor had been passed lightly across it. As the feather grows down this line comes down with it, and may be seen in all its hideousness, after the hawk is summed, if any big feather is examined carefully. A fast of more than fifteen hours--in the daytime--will generally cause a slight hunger-streak; but the night hours do not count for much; so that hawks which have to travel far before getting into the trainer's hands should be taken late in the day and started at once, so that they may be met as soon as they arrive on the following day. If the falconer cannot attend personally at the capture of the eyesses, he should at least send to the captor a suitable hamper in which to pack and send them. This should be roomy and round in shape, having its sides and top lined inside with sacking, matting, or other soft material. In the bottom of it a good thick layer of straw should be lightly strewed, for the hawks to rest upon; and the lining should fit well enough to exclude almost all light. Even with all these precautions there is some risk of breaking feathers, and still more of bending them and deforming them with dirt. On railways the guards may generally be cajoled into taking special care that the hamper is not turned upside down or banged about. But I have more than once known of valuable hawks arriving dead from a short sea voyage--killed by the evident ill-treatment to which the padded hamper has been subjected on the way.