Let me here quote from my hawk diary: "12 noon; out to hack field, and follow a blackbird down Butt's orchard hedge. Nearing the corner, blackbird (young cock) takes across the orchard. Drop him, winged, as he goes over the front hedge; and he falls in the hack field. Jubilee [eyess male merlin] is on a block in the middle of it, 90 yards off. It is his third day out. As the blackbird falls, he starts, and, stooping at it as it runs, takes it, kills it, and begins to plume it like a wild hawk before I get up." Pretty sharp work this for a little hawk that had never used his wings till the day before yesterday. But this capture of a winged bird was not counted as a "kill"; and Jubilee was left out for a good eight days more, and might probably have been left a few longer. Hack hawks know no sentimental scruples about taking their prey on the ground. Here is another extract from a hawk diary: "6.30 a.m., out and fed hack hawks on lure. 'She' not visible. At 7 saw her on wire fence, half-way across park. As I got near with lure she started, and, flying low over the ground away from me, turned suddenly, and dropped on some bird in the grass. Was pluming it, when heifers came right up to her. Then lifted, and carried into the lower belt. Quarry looked like a missel-thrush." The same day "She" was taken up. It is a risky thing to leave hawks out after they have once begun serious and successful chasing. Yet it is a thousand pities to take them up too soon, just when they are improving most rapidly. Peregrines may be left out, with heavy hack-bells, for four weeks or occasionally more. Merlins seldom more than three weeks. If the hack place and its neighbourhood are very open, and the wild birds about are few, there is less danger, and less need for hurry. But when the trees and bushes are well stocked with wood-pigeons, thrushes, and small birds, beware.