Meal-times for the hack hawks should be pretty punctually observed. Otherwise the hawks will become irregular in their habits, and the falconer will be compelled rather to dance attendance on them than they on him. The food may be left out on the board for an hour each time, and then removed, before it has become fly-blown or soaked with rain or frizzled in the sun. 6 to 7 a.m., noon to 1, and 6 to 7 p.m., are very good hours. And each time when the board is garnished and the food in readiness, the trainer may blow a whistle, or ring a bell, or sound a gong, to give notice from afar. At each meal there must be "calling over"; and if there is any absentee a mark must be recorded against his or her name. A bath or two must be set out in the hack field. From about 9 to 11 a.m. it should be kept pretty full of clean fresh water; but it should be removed or emptied before noon. Most hawks are very capricious about bathing; and hobbies, which want it most, will seldom bathe at all. The others should be accustomed to bathe early in the day, so that when they are old they will not depart from this godly habit. Plenty of blocks should stand around, on which the bathed hawks may stand to sun and air themselves. The longer the period of hack can be safely protracted the better for the hack hawk and her trainer. All the while she is learning to fly. During the latter part she is also learning to chase and to stoop. Here it is that the danger comes in. For in that ardour of youthful chase what kills may come! At first the random shots made from tall tree-tops at passing swallows will be wide enough of the mark. Even the young missel-thrushes or wood-pigeons which have frequented the hack ground will make light of the clumsy efforts made to cut them down; and the house-pigeons from the nearest dovecot will treat with supreme contempt the well-meaning but awkward stoops made at them. But every day finds the young hawks more expert, as well as stronger on the wing. The long feathers are now all down. The shafts harden, and no longer bend perceptibly as the wing-tips strike the air. Presently the flights at wild birds are no longer mere child's play. The fugitives have to exert themselves to save their skins. Very likely the young hunters of the air are not at first altogether in earnest. Secure of their food at the hack board or lure or fist, and trusting to it for their subsistence, they are merely "having a lark" with the intruders on what has begun to be their domain. But it is increasingly difficult to know how much of their endeavours is play and how much real business. Be sure, however, that when any stoop, whether playful or not, proves successful, and the unfortunate victim is in the pursuer's clutch, there will be no more play; and on some lonely patch of ground not fifty miles from the hack field there will be left a litter of feathers, the mortal remains of the first quarry killed by hawks of the year.