FOOTNOTES:
[778] A hawk that falls into deep still water can flap its way to shore—certainly for twenty or thirty yards.
CHAPTER LXV
SAGE ADVICE
Never forget the advice I will now give you. First: borrow nothing from any man, neither one penny nor a million; for if your request be granted, you are under an eternal obligation and must ever carry out the orders of him who hath obliged you.[779] Borrowing hawks, and dogs, and greyhounds, which are instruments of the chase—bad though such borrowing be—does not place you under a very great obligation, and further, should the loan be refused, it is no great slight to you.
Second: Three things you should never lend to any friend or sportsman; your own special horse, your own special gun, and your own special hawk. Lending any one of these is like lending your wife; therefore, my friend, lend none of these; for, if you do, the bands of friendship will be changed for the bonds of enmity. Bestow things freely, if you like, for giving is generosity.
Lend not at all, or else when thou hast lent
Seek not again from the recipient:
Of what they’ve lent, they seek no restitution
Such as be men of gen’rous constitution.
“Halsband” dangerous in Hilly or Wooded Country.—
Third: before you go hawking in hilly or woody country, remove the “halsband”[780] from your goshawk’s neck, and this for two reasons: (1) the “halsband” interferes with her foot-work when she puts in; she perhaps gets her foot entangled in it, and the partridge or pheasant goes out at the other side of the bush; (2) it often happens that a lost hawk is found hanging dead from a branch, suspended by its “halsband.” Hence in hilly and woody country the hawk should be freed from what is there an encumbrance.
“Halsband” necessary in the Plains.—In plains, however, a “halsband” is necessary to support the hawk when she is cast off and to prevent a strain to her loins: for, in the plains, you put your horse into a gallop that your hawk may start from the fist with the force of a bullet,[781] and to this impetus you add the force of your arm when casting her. However, when flying at chukor and seesee in the hills, the flight is down-hill, and the hawk has the advantage of gravity, so it is unnecessary to use hand-force in casting her.