The hawking season is now at hand. The bird must be put to the proof, to ascertain if she has profited by these lessons so skilfully graduated, by this education so laboriously inculcated, and so appropriate to her nature and to the style of sport for which she is intended. They go out, therefore, on horseback, taking the "gentle" bird hood-winked, and proceed to an open plain, or a vast plateau, having first provided themselves with five or six live hares. Having reached the appointed spot they take a hare and, having broken its four feet, let it go within the scope of the bird's ken. Squeaking and moaning it hobbles on as well as it can, when they unhood the falcon, and throw her off—exclaiming _Bi es-sem Allah! Allah akbar!_ The _terakel_, impatient, soars straight up toward the sky, and from a great height swoops down upon the hare, which she kills, or stuns, with a single blow with her tightly closed talons, as with a fist. The hunters come up, bleed and open the animal, and give the entrails, the liver, and the heart to the bird, who devours them on the spot. After repeating this lesson several days in succession, the training of the bird is considered complete. This course of instruction has extended from summer to near the end of autumn, which is the favourable season, for the falcon only hunts well in cloudy and cold weather. She cannot endure the glare of the sun, nor yet thirst or heat. She would leave her master to go in search of water, which she sees from afar, and would never return. At that period, then, a party sets out after a light breakfast, at about eleven in the morning, with the falcon on the shoulder or on the fist. The only provisions they take with them are camel's milk, dates, bread, and dried grapes. But the sport does not begin until after a tolerably long ride, towards three in the afternoon. The cavalcade is usually a numerous one. Having reached a suitable spot, they scatter about, beating the brushwood and tufts of _alfa_ in the hope of starting a hare, which they drive towards the man who holds the falcon. As soon as the quarry is sighted, the latter unhoods the bird, and throws her off; pointing with his finger to the hare, and exclaiming _Ha hou!_ "there it is!" While her master is pronouncing the sacramental _Bi es-sem Allah! Allah akbar!_ the bird is off, soars out of sight, keeping the hare in view all the time with her piercing eye, and then precipitates herself upon it, and strikes it, either on the head or on the shoulder, one blow with her closed talons, violent enough to stun, if not to kill it. The horsemen, seeing the falcon stoop, gallop up from all quarters, surround her, and generally find her engaged in picking out the eyes of the hare. To make her let go, some one draws out from below his burnous the skin of another hare, and throws it down a little way off, when she immediately pounces upon it. Her _curée_, or reward, is not given to her until after their return to the _douar_.