The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

Possibly before your hawk will feed, and while you are carrying her, you will find that she wants to cast. With her last meal eaten in freedom, she is pretty sure to have swallowed some castings. Ten to one she has thrown these up before she came to your decoy pigeon. But it is possible she may not. Moreover, if the first hood she wears is an easy one, well cut away at the beak opening, she may cast through the hood. But if she is seen making efforts to cast, and is prevented by the hood from doing so, take her into a nearly dark room or passage. Remove the hood with the fingers and teeth, and, when she has thrown up her casting, slip it on again. Otherwise she may possibly choke herself in the vain attempt to cast. Of course you will not dream of allowing her, for days to come, to eat anything anywhere except on the fist.

If a wild-caught hawk is so rampageous from the first that she will not stand on the fist at all without jumping off, she must be left on the turf mound, but by no means be allowed to go to sleep. An attendant must be at hand who will effectually prevent this by touching her whenever she seems to be dozing off. A few hours of this stirring-up will make her ready enough to keep quiet on the fist when she has a chance. And a few hours more will make her willing enough to stand still there, even when the fist is moved unsteadily about.

We will suppose now that the passager has at last fed moderately but unstintingly through the hood upon the fist; that she can be carried about on it without much risk of bating off; and that she has had no sleep since she was brought in. She may now be stroked gently with an uncut pencil or short stick, first on the back, then on the breast and legs. Some writers advise doing this with a feather; but the stick is far preferable. The time has now arrived for releasing her for a while from the hood. But before this is done, she must be taken into a room which is nearly dark, so that on the removal of the hood she can hardly see her way about. The time chosen should also be when she is sharp-set; and a tempting piece of food should be under her feet at the time. As she pulls at it, more light may be let in; and possibly she will keep at her meal quietly until it is nearly or quite broad daylight in the place. But most falconers first unhood their hawks by candlelight. Then one candle may be first lighted at one end of a long room, when hawk and man are at the other. If all goes well, a second may be lighted, and then the man, keeping a sharp eye on his hawk, may walk slowly towards them into the fuller light. Thus by degrees, taking care not to proceed too fast, or ever alarm the pupil, she may be made tame enough to feed bareheaded even in the open air.

The old falconers used to “seel” their wild-caught hawks, stitching up the eyelids so as to make them blind; and anyone who is neat-handed enough to be able to seel a hawk without causing her any pain or injury may find it a good plan now to adopt this system. Then, suppose there are four stitches in each eyelid, on the first day of unseeling the pair nearest the beak may be removed, and one more pair on each succeeding day, till the whole eye is free. But seeling, as a matter of fact, has now gone quite out of fashion in this country. Many modern amateurs also seem to disbelieve in the expediency of waking wild-caught hawks, i.e. preventing them from sleeping. And true it is that this expedient is not absolutely necessary. But one may safely say that a hawk which is waked well directly after it is captured will be reclaimed three or four times as soon and as easily as one which is not.

I have spoken of slipping the hood on and off a hawk as if it were a thing that the falconer, whether experienced or not, could accomplish without bungling. But it must not be inferred that the operation is easy. Probably it is the part of a falconer’s first duties which is more difficult than any other. Even amongst expert falconers it is not altogether common to find a really good hooder. The knack of hooding is only to be acquired, like other fine arts, by long and assiduous practice. For this reason, if for no other, every beginner should try his ’prentice hand on a kestrel before he aspires to a peregrine or merlin. If he can by any means make acquaintance with a graduate in the art of falconry who is known to hood well, let him observe minutely his method and manner, and after each lesson practise on the corpus vile of the “knave’s hawk” to acquire the same facility which he has seen his senior to possess. Example in this case is more valuable than precept. But do not, by any mistake, become a pupil of a bad hooder! In the hands of a bungler no hawk can well be good-tempered, whereas in the hands of a first-rate master she will stand to the hood as if she rather liked it. When Adrian Möllen was with the Loo Club in Holland one of the king’s brothers came to him for a fortnight, for an hour every day, simply and solely to learn how to hood. There are various manners of putting the hood on. Some hold the base of the plume between the right forefinger and thumb, and, passing it slowly up the breast of the hawk, pop it on quickly over the beak, and with a tap on the forehead push it back into its place. Others hold the hood by the plume between the fore edge of the palm and the inside of the base of the thumb, and, presenting the palm of the hand right in front of the hawk’s face, push it forwards, and cause the beak to pass through the opening, raising the wrist afterwards so as to force the back of the hood down on to the nape. In any case there must be an appearance of quiet deliberation about the movements made, combined with a certain amount of actual quickness.

The hood used in learning to hood should be an easy one, very much cut away at the beak opening. And the hawk herself must be first so far manned that she will allow the intending hooder to pass his hand over the crown of her head, and to stroke her on the back without making any objection, or exhibiting any uneasiness. She should be accustomed to the sight of the hood, and have often been allowed to pick nice little morsels of meat from the outside of it. Then she may be allowed to pick a clean piece or two from the inside of it; and from the beak opening, under which, as the hood lies upside-down in your hand, you hold the seductive morsel. If a hawk is so treated as to become the least afraid of the hood, it will be a work of dire difficulty, and almost impossibility in awkward hands, to break her to it, or cure her of the vice. And hawks are sometimes to be seen so mismanaged by their owners that they get into a “state of mind” at the mere sight of the obnoxious head-dress. A hood-shy hawk is not only a nuisance, but a discredit to her trainer.

When the hawk has once gone so far as to dip her beak into the hood in search of a scrap of food, it requires no great dexterity to slip it over her head. While doing so the knuckles of the left hand should be turned slightly outwards, so that the hawk’s head is naturally projected forwards towards the hood, and cannot easily be drawn back; whereas as soon as the hood is on the same knuckles should be turned a little inwards so that the head is held up. The braces can then be seized, one in the right finger and thumb, and the other by the teeth, and pulled tight, before the wearer can jerk or shake it off. Merlins are of all hawks the most difficult to hood, owing to their extreme vivacity and the quickness with which they discern and anticipate any movement of the trainer. But then their amenability to kind treatment is also so great that they can be handled, like a horse or dog, without offence, if a little patience is exhibited. And, once well broken to the hood, they will stand to it as well as peregrines or goshawks. Gers have a reputation for often being hood-shy; but perhaps the proper treatment of them, in this as in other respects, is now imperfectly understood.

The early steps in the process of reclaiming passagers were so well described four centuries ago by Turbervile that I cannot do better than quote, on this subject, his exact words. After giving instructions for seeling the captive, and putting on of bells, jesses, and swivel, he continues: "Being thus furnished you shall go about to man her, handling her often gently, and both to avoide the sharpnes of her beake as also the better rebuke her from biting and nipping, you shall have a straight smoothe sticke, as bigge as your finger, and halfe a foot long or more, with the which you shal gently stroke your hawk about the pinions of her wings and downwards athwart all her train. And if she chance to knap or byte at the sticke let her bite hardly, for that will rebuke her thereof, whereas your hand being twitched away fearfully would make her proceed the more eagerly. To man her well you must watch all the night and keepe her on your fist, and you must teach her to feed seeled; and having a great and easie rufter hood, you must hood and unhood her oftentimes, seeled as she is [here we see the advantage of seeling], handling her gently about the head, and coying her alwayes when you unhood her, to the end she take no disdayne or displeasure against her keeper. And also to make her plume and tyre sometimes upon a wing, and keepe her so on the first day and night without perching of her, untill she be wearie, and suffer you to hoode her gently and stirre not; and correct her of her ramage toyes, especially of snapping and biting, stroking her evermore as before said with your sticke. But if it happen (as it doth sometimes) that your chance be to have a Falcon so ramage and shewde-mettled, that she will not leave her snapping and biting, then take a dose of Garlicke cleane pilled, or a little aloes cicatrina, and when she byteth or snappeth at your hand or stick, offer her the Garlicke or aloes, and let her bite it, for either the strong sent of the Garlicke or the bitter taste of the aloes will quickly make her leave off.

"And here I thinke good to expresse mine opinion, that hee which taketh in hand to be a Falconer, ought first to be very patient and therwithall to take singular delight in a Hawke, so that hee may seeme to bee in love (as it were naturally) with his Hawke. For hee which taketh not that delight, but doth rather exercise it for a pompe and a boast, in mine opinion, shall seldome prove a perfect Falconer, but a mar-hawke, and shall beare the bagge after a right Falconer.

"When your Hawke, being so seeled, doth feede well, and will abide the Hoode, and to be handled without striking or biting at your hand, then in an evening by candle light you shall unseele her, and when you have hooded her take her on your fist, and holde her so all night untill day appeare againe, doing off her Hoode oftentimes, and handling her gently with your hand, stroking her softly about the wings and the body, hooding and unhooding of her and giving her sometimes to feede, a morsell or twain, or sometimes tyring or plumage. But above all things you must watch her on the fist so many nights together without setting her downe on any pearch, that shee may be wearie and suffer you to hoode and handle her gently without any manner of resistance, and untill shee have altogether left and forgotten her striking and byting at your hand; but some hawkes will be long before they leave that fault, as the more coy or ramage that they be, the longer they will retain all those ill tatches, and will not peradventure be wonne from them in three, foure, or five dayes. When she is well reclaymed from it then may you let her sit upon a pearch to rest her. But every night you shall doe well to keepe her on the fist three or foure houres, handling her and stroking her gently and causing her to tyre or to plume, alwayes making much of her, and hooding and unhooding her oftentimes, as before said. And the like you may doe also by daylight but in a chamber apart where she may see no great light, untill she feed surely and eagerly without dread.