The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

When the newly-entered hawk has taken his bagged rook, you must get up as quickly as you can and make in at once. Then seizing the “pelt,” or dead body of the quarry, you must contrive so that the hawk, instead of breaking in upon that unsavoury morsel, shall proceed by mistake to begin her meal upon a pigeon which you have just before killed, and which you surreptitiously substitute for by holding it side by side with the dead rook. The object, of course, is to induce in her ladyship’s mind the belief that she is eating what she has killed, and finds it uncommonly good. Eyesses are naturally deceived very easily into this fallacious notion. As for passage hawks, it is quite possible that many of them have no more idea than eyesses what a rook tastes like. Unless they have ever been hard pressed for a meal, it is more than probable that they have never condescended to dine off a rook. Anyhow, they will not be at all unwilling to lend themselves to a deception fraught with such gratifying results. “Dear me,” may be the haggard’s inward reflection, “what a goose I have been all this time never to pay any attention to these vulgar black birds! Why, they taste as good as pigeon!” And the next time she has a chance of paying attention, she will. This “personation trick” is invariably used by Indian and Asiatic falconers in kite-flying with sakers. It is necessary, or at least advisable, in entering hawks at herons, gulls, and other coarse-fleshed birds. In the case of rooks it may be discontinued after a short while, if it is found on a cautious trial that the hawk will eat rook with any relish. Many falcons, when flying rooks almost daily, are habitually fed upon the last victim they have killed in the day. But it is not to be supposed that any hawk will be very fond of such coarse viands; and some will not eat them at all.

Supposing now that the rook-hawk is safely entered, and a suitable country found, the next thing is to also find a wild rook in a suitable part of that country. And this is not altogether an easy matter. In some very excellent districts, where the rooks are flown at every year, they become excessively wary, and quite clever at avoiding the chance of a good slip at them. The old birds, who have been spectators of many a battle in the air in which one of their comrades was worsted and lost his life, or who have perhaps even themselves done battle, and escaped with great difficulty, become suspicious of all mounted men. They remember very well and with a fluttering heart the appearance of the little squadron of horsemen which once brought with them Lady Long-wing, who made such a dreadful example of poor papa Caw-Caw. Who can say that they do not remember the very faces and the green uniforms of the murderous men to whom Lady Long-wing belonged? Anyhow, as they strut on the hillside or pick about along the furrows, they are on the alert directly a detachment of irregular cavalry comes in sight, which looks at all as if it might be accompanied by hawks. Very often their sentinels incontinently give the signal of alarm, and the flock scuds off summarily to safer feeding-grounds. At all events they do so long before they can be approached within what a beginner would consider a reasonable distance. The result is that in order to get within reach of such quarry it has sometimes been found necessary to resort to stratagem. Rooks have been stalked by a falconer on foot creeping along behind the shelter of a waggon, or actually disguised as a farm labourer. Sometimes the hawking party will lie concealed under the lee of a rick, waiting for a distant rook to cross within range, or to be driven by mounted beaters in the direction of the ambush. And after all precautions have been taken it is often useless to wait for a short slip. The distance at which good passage hawks are now thrown off at Wiltshire rooks will astonish a person who has never seen anything better than a moderate eyess. A quarter of a mile is not considered at all too long a start when a hawk is a fast one and in good flying order. But the longer the start the better the country must be if you are to score a kill.

A falconer on the look-out for rooks will often have to get over a good deal of ground in the day. Twenty miles—without counting in the flights—is probably rather under than over the average distance when any considerable number of hawks are to be flown. It is, of course, almost a necessity to be mounted; and it is well to have a horse under you which is not new to the business, especially if you are to carry a hawk yourself, or may be called upon to take one up. A horse which has never been out with the hawks before is likely to be very much put out by the ringing of the hawk’s bell, and still more if she also flutters her wings in a high wind. While following a ringing flight your eyes will naturally be directed more towards the realms above than to the ground over which you are galloping; and, as many of the downs on which this sport is most often pursued abound in ant-hills, if your animal stumbles over one of these obstacles you are likely to pay for your inattention by a severe cropper. If it falls to your lot to take up the hawk after she has killed, you must, of course, dismount. To enable you to do this and devote your whole attention to it, a special apparatus is provided. To the outside of your saddle will be attached a pocket, within which can be fitted a leaden weight secured by a leather, the other end of which can be attached to the horse’s head, so that by merely throwing the weight on the ground he is at once tethered. No one of course presumes to take up another man’s hawk unless it has been so arranged beforehand, or in case of urgent necessity, as for instance if the owner is not in sight, and there is danger that the hawk may be attacked on the ground by some deadly enemy. Of course rook-hawking may be attempted on foot. But unless markers are posted skilfully at the places where a hawk is likely to go out of sight, there is great risk of losing her. Moreover, it is impossible to see much of the best flights. A great deal of time will be wasted in moving about between each flight; and still more in shifting the markers from place to place, as well as in finding the hawk after a long flight which has ended in a kill. The rook-hawker on foot comes back footsore, and very weary. And he is lucky if these are the only ills of which he has to complain.

Rook-hawks which have been brought out to fly, but are not for the time actually engaged, either because their turn has not come, or because they have already flown and been fed up, are either carried about by a cadger on the cadge, or made fast to a field-block in a well-sheltered place, or consigned to perches rigged up in the inside of a van, which can be drawn by a cart-horse. The latter plan is adopted by the Old Hawking Club, by which more hawks are usually taken out than could be accommodated on one cadge. It has the great merit of serving to protect the inmates from the bitterly cold winds which often prevail in the rook-hawking season, and also from the rain. Such a van should be well provided with springs. Otherwise the jolting, while it passes over rough ground, as it needs must, would do almost more mischief than the wind or rain. In any case, whether you go singly with a single hawk on your fist or with a whole cadge full or van full of hungry peregrines, the hood will be worn. Nor will it be removed until the moment arrives when the wearer is to be thrown off. But when any hawk is being carried with a view to a flight the swivel will be detached from the jesses and the latter held tightly in the fingers of the left hand. Some falconers who use ring swivels in the field, take them off directly the hawk is taken on the fist for the purpose of being flown, and then slipping the leash through one ring of the swivel and afterwards through the loops in the two jesses, are ready to pull it out quickly when there is a rook in sight and it becomes possible that they may have to throw off at any moment. Some also, when a flight is pretty sure to begin shortly, loosen the hood’s braces without taking it off, so that there may be no delay in whipping it off at exactly the right moment. No one has ever been able to explain how it is that peregrines can emerge suddenly from utter darkness into the full glare of daylight, with eyesight as good as ever, ready in the very first moment to catch sight of a distant rook and to begin the chase. That they have this faculty everyone knows who has ever seen a rook flown by a trained peregrine. Fortunate for the falconer that it is so, as he can choose his own moment for the throw-off.

If you are intending to fly a hawk for the first time at a wild rook, get some other person who is out with a made hawk to be also ready with her. Then, if the first chance at a rook is not an easy one, let that other person throw off his hawk and keep yours for a less difficult flight. Wait, if possible, until you can find a quarry which is not too far off and not high in the air. If you can get up within a hundred yards or so of one on the ground to windward of you, so much the better. The moment he jumps up, off with the hood, and with a steady movement of the left arm forwards, something like that of a left-arm slow bowler, launch your hawk into the wind. Use whatever cry of encouragement you like, or use none at all; at anyrate, not any cry which you may have used in calling off. And if, in the excitement of the moment you should not throw away the hood, but stuff it into your pouch or pocket, that will also be satisfactory. If you drop it you are not likely to find it on the open down without some hours’ search, if at all. Such presence of mind is, however, I am aware, rather too great to expect.

A rook with any self-respect about him will begin to mount as soon as he is aware that he is being pursued. And of this fact he will not be long in ignorance. Seldom does a trained hawk make half a dozen strokes of her wing before the quarry espies her and knows exactly what she means. With this knowledge the black-a-moor of the air wakes up, and then, if never before, he is on his mettle. Few people know how a rook can fly until they have seen him in front of a peregrine which means business. His wings are broad and strong, and not much worse shaped than a hawk’s. His muscles are good; and by reason of much daily exercise in all weathers he is in good condition—better far, perhaps, than your passage hawk, which was cooped up inactive for weeks, and only during the last fortnight or so has had a modicum of exercise while flying to the lure. The two birds will breast the wind as they mount; but not necessarily taking the same line. Sometimes the two lines will diverge so much that from your point of view behind, the birds seem to be flying away from one another. Generally speaking, the better the hawk the less slavishly will she follow the course taken by the quarry. She flies “with her head,” and, trusting for victory to the long, powerful stoop, concentrates her efforts on attaining to a position from which she can deliver it to best advantage. Thus if, the wind being north, and the safest shelter west, the rook shapes his course to the north-west, the falcon may very probably steer due west. By doing so she makes sure that she will soon be almost between the quarry and that desirable place of refuge. To make it he must come right past her and under her. Or else he must keep away and make for another covert, and in that case he will have a long way to go; and there will be time to catch him up, and get between him and that other haven. To passage hawks, especially haggards, this finessing is the A B C of scientific flying. Moreover, an experienced hawk does not always choose to stoop exactly up-wind, but prefers, for some reason of her own, to come at her victim sideways. There are mysterious laws and principles of aërial steering, which no man understands, but which sometimes make a stoop more telling when made in a direction unexpected by the riders down below. Eyesses are generally some time before they learn the art of utilising the wind to increase the force of their stoop, and of using their heads to help their wings. Some, it is true, seem to be born good tacticians, or at least to have instinctively learnt to be so while flying at hack. But these are quite the exceptions. Not only do eyesses as a rule begin with an inferior style, but very few of them ever attain to the perfection of form which long practice in all weathers at all sorts of different quarry has taught the old wild hawk.

As the two birds mount, the hawk naturally gains on the rook. She is the quicker flier; sometimes, perhaps, by a hundred per cent., but generally much less than this. Going down-wind there is not so much difference between them, when both are at the same height. But the start at a rook should always be up-wind. To throw off at a down-wind rook is bad falconry. When a rook means to “keep the air,” or beat the hawk in fair flying, he will, after a while, begin to ring, that is, to ascend spirally in circles. Why he should do this, instead of continuing in a straight line, no one, I think, has properly explained. But the road upwards for most birds when they are exerting themselves—be they kites, herons, rooks, or larks—is in spiral circles more or less regular, a very obliging dispensation of nature for those who want to look on at a high flight! For while the ringing lasts the horsemen down below need not hurry themselves. Only, if there is anything of a wind they should always keep moving, so as to be well to leeward of the flight, shifting their ground to right or left according as the circles seem to tend in one or the other direction. The higher the quarry goes the faster and farther will be the headlong dash down-wind if he is beaten in the air. After a while, if the hawk perseveres, her superior flying powers will take her above the quarry. At what time and height this desirable result is brought about depends, of course, partly upon the speed of the one bird and partly on the speed of the other. There is a saying among falconers that a good hawk makes a bad quarry, meaning that a rook or other bird which might give a fine flight when only a moderate hawk was behind him very often makes quite a poor show against a first-rate performer. It may also be said with some truth that a good quarry makes a bad hawk, inasmuch as hawks which have flown many a good flight and killed many a fairly fast-flying rook may sometimes find themselves pitted against such exceptionally strong ones that they seem unable to get above them, and give to the stranger an appearance of being slow themselves.

A good and experienced falcon or other rook-hawk will not be content with merely getting above her quarry before she makes her first stoop. She will go on ringing until she is so far above that the first stoop will be a good one. That is to say, that she may be able to get such an impetus upon her in the dash downwards as to rush up to the rook hand over hand, or, as the racing men say, as if he were standing still. And, having so run up to him, that she may, if she misses him, utilise the remainder of her impetus in shooting up again in preparation for a second stoop. The rook, on his part, when he finds the falcon above him, has to choose between two courses. Either he will persevere in trying to keep the air—and in that case must trust to quick turns and twists to elude the foe—or he will adopt the less valiant but almost equally dangerous alternative of a race to the nearest covert, with the necessity of eluding a certain number of stoops on the way. In the first case the flight will become a sort of improved version of coursing. Improved, because a bird has so much more varied chances of throwing out his pursuer than the hare, which can turn only either to the right or the left. He must always be on what the mathematicians call the same plane. The rook, on the other hand, may, if he likes, double simply to right or left. But he may also, if he prefers it, duck downwards or shoot upwards, allowing the hawk to pass over him or under him. Or he may turn partly upwards or downwards, and partly to either side. Thus there are an unlimited number of angles at which he can swerve away to avoid the stroke.

The art and science of “shifting” is indeed one of the most elaborate that is possessed by the dumb creature. Almost all birds cultivate it to a certain degree. Instinct suggests it to them; but many birds improve upon their natural powers by frequent practice. Who has not seen one rook chasing another, either in sport or in a petulant humour, and the fugitive evidently enjoying the fun of throwing out his persecutor? In the tropics there is nothing that a crow likes better than stooping at kites; and nothing that the kite takes greater pride in than showing how easily he can elude the shots so made at him. I have seen pigeons, when a slow or lazy peregrine is in the air, deliberately hang about within reach of her for the express purpose of enjoying the amusement of successfully shifting when she makes a dash for them. Indeed, it will be seen in [Chapter XIX.] that I saw this game played rather too rashly by a house-pigeon with a trained ger-tiercel. It has been said that the rook in full plumage is no mean flier. He has also a good head on his glossy shoulders, and he shifts cleverly enough while his lungs and muscles hold out. He does not often lose his head, in the metaphysical sense. Sometimes, when particularly close shots graze him, or even feather him, he is frightened into wasting a little breath in an angry complaining croak. But this is almost the only piece of stupidity that can be alleged against him. Usually, however hard pressed, he keeps all his wits about him; and when he is beaten in the air, it is oftenest from sheer want of speed and want of wind. The violent effort required to escape by shifting a good stoop of a first-rate peregrine takes it out of him terribly. The whiz of the falcon as she rushes by is enough to make the stoutest heart quail. But cowardice is not the weak point of the rook, who, for the most part, has a determined and fair struggle for his life.

Of course the stoop takes it out of the hawk also. But then the hawk has two great advantages. She is the faster bird, and she is better at the “throw up.” This is the counter-move by which she responds to the shifts of the quarry. A good long-winged hawk, after an unsuccessful stoop, immediately shoots up to a great height above the place where the stoop was intended to take effect. She rebounds, as it were, from the rapid descent, glancing upwards with wide open wings to a new position of advantage. And herein she has the advantage of the greyhound. The farther the dog is thrown out, the more laborious is the work of getting into position for the next attack. But a falcon may come past her quarry with as much way on as ever she can command. That impetus need not carry her away to a disadvantageous position, but, on the contrary, to one where she is still admirably placed for a fresh stoop. By throwing up well and with good judgment, and sometimes a little luck, a good hawk after once getting well above her rook will keep the command of the air for the rest of the flight. The quarry may throw up too; but if his pursuer makes the most of her first advantage, he will always find her above him after he has done so. It may be that she will be very wide of him. But distance calculated in mere length counts for comparatively little. It is the distance in height from the earth below that makes all the difference.