It is, however, very easy to mistake the symptoms, and to imagine that a hawk wants reducing when in fact she wants feeding up. The result, of course, of such faulty diagnosis will be that the treatment applied as a remedy aggravates the mischief already done. It is much easier to reduce a hawk than to get flesh on her again. The beginner should therefore be very sure that his hawk has been overfed before he shortens her daily supply of food. By making a mistake on the other side, and feeding up a hawk which is already a bit above herself, the worst inconvenience that is likely to follow, in the case of an eyess, is a little delay in getting her down to the lure. Passage hawks, especially for a while after they have first been reclaimed, are of course liable to be lost if too highly fed, for when disinclined to come to the lure or fist they are apt to rake away after chance quarry. But they may be full-fleshed and strong, and yet be eager for their food. It is a great mistake, though a very common one, to suppose that a thin hawk is necessarily a hungry one. Whether a hawk is fat or thin is a question of days, whereas it is a question of hours whether she is hungry or not. For instance, a peregrine may have had nearly a full crop every day for a week, and yet if on the eighth day she has only a very light feed in the morning she will be as hungry as a hunter on the ninth day in the afternoon. The tendency nowadays is rather to overfeed hawks, and to forget the old maxim about a fat hawk making “a lean horse and an empty purse.” The amateur has been so loudly warned against keeping a thin hawk that in avoiding this reproach he falls into the other extreme, and attempts to fly his hawk when she is really not sharp-set at all.
Washed meat—so commonly used by the old falconers, that it may almost be said to have been a normal daily diet—is now but rarely given, unless, indeed, where a parsimonious or careless owner has neglected to provide fresh meat, and tainted beef is soaked and squeezed so as to make it available as food. The proper mode of preparing washed meat is to take it when quite fresh and immerse it for a while in cold water, and then dry it in a warm place. Part of its nutritive power—of its goodness, in fact—will then have disappeared, and what remains will digest quickly, leaving the hawk more keen and sooner hungry than if she had swallowed the same quantity of unwashed meat. For the smaller hawks it is less suitable than for the larger; and if it is desired to take them down a peg or two, it will generally be found best either to resort to a diet naturally light, such as rabbit or sheep’s heart, or to reduce a little in quantity the accustomed allowance of their usual food. When a merlin is a bit bumptious, independent, and disobedient, her morning ration may be curtailed, or in feeding up after the day’s exercise she may be indulged only with a good half-crop, instead of the habitual three-quarters. When a peregrine or hawk of similar habits is inclined to be uppish, and to disdain the dead lure, it is a good plan, besides being a shade stingy at dinner-time, to fly her each day at least an hour later than the day before. When, in this way, her time of flying has got to be so late that it cannot be deferred till later on the following day, give her a gorge, or at least a very full meal, when she has done flying, and on the next day, an hour after she has cast, give her quite a light feed, and do not fly her at all till the day after at noon. Sakers, lanners, and that class of hawks must be rather sternly treated if they get above themselves, for their nature is to support long fasts without much trouble. And eagles, of course, must sometimes be almost starved a little.
Remember always that the food given to a trained hawk belongs to one or other of several categories, which rank differently as regards nutritive power. Highest on the list is the flesh of birds or other animals eaten immediately after they are killed, while the life-blood is still warm within them. The meals of wild hawks are, as a rule, of this description; and these accordingly, by virtue of their diet, as well as of their habits, are the most vigorous and healthy of all. Next in order comes the flesh of such creatures as have been killed long enough to grow cold. And in the last rank must be placed washed meat—artificially reduced to its least nutritive character. When it is desired to improve the condition of a hawk, food of the first class will most quickly and most surely effect the object. Any hawk which is found to be below par should have at the first opportunity at least one “bloody crop,” i.e. should either be allowed to take her pleasure on some quarry which she has herself killed, or be indulged with a pigeon, duck, fowl, or other animal which has just been killed. The flesh of animals, whether freshly killed or not, differs a good deal in quality. Pigeons, duck, plovers, and sparrows are about the most nourishing; chickens, rabbits, quails, larks, and mice, somewhat less so. The flesh of rooks, gulls, magpies, water-hens, and coots is not very palatable; and some trained hawks will not touch it. None are likely to improve in condition if fed upon it. There is nothing a trained hawk likes better than good tender beef, especially if it is slightly warmed before being given. It is also very sustaining, and will increase a hawk’s weight rapidly, when a generous allowance of it is made. It is, however, much heavier and more solid than the natural food of any hawk, and therefore apt, if freely given, to make her dull, slow, and sluggish. For sparrow-hawks and merlins it is distinctly bad, if often taken, and in large quantities at a time. These latter, when in flying order at the right season of the year, are, of course, almost always fed up in the field on the quarry they have last killed before finishing their day’s work, and the next morning have a few mouthfuls of similar food which has been killed the afternoon before. When a rook-hawk will readily feed up in the same way on her vanquished quarry, it will be convenient, occasionally at least, to let her do so. Game-hawks should also be allowed sometimes to take their pleasure on their own grouse, partridge, pheasant, or even woodcock; but in practice they are seldom lucky enough to get more than the heads and necks, though modern falconers who fly mostly for sport, and not “for the pot,” are often more liberal in this respect than their predecessors of the Middle Ages.
Goshawks, when kept to hares, or indeed to any quarry which taxes their utmost powers, should often be allowed to finish their meal on one of their victims. Between whiles they may often with advantage be regaled with washed meat only, or some not very appetising food. It is well to induce all hawks to believe that a kill after a hard flight means an extra good feast. But merlins and male sparrow-hawks must very seldom, if at all, know the taste of washed meat, or of any third-rate diet. Some of them, when in first-rate fettle, are very dainty, and will lose the pink of their condition if not indulged with their favourite food. These little hawks are exceedingly fond of swallows and some other very small birds; and although few people would be barbarous enough to deliberately kill any small bird except a sparrow, yet if a young martin should be picked up under the nest from which it has accidentally fallen, and given to a merlin, it will be odd if that hawk does not fly unusually well when next put on the wing. In the lark-hawking season, one of these active workers will not only keep herself in food, but often supply enough extra victims to provide a daily meal of the very best kind for a tiercel, or even a falcon, which happens then to be in moult. The short-winged hawks will also sometimes in one afternoon kill more than they could themselves eat in a week.
A not unimportant item of the commissariat is a supply of good tirings. A tiring may consist of anything tough which is appetising enough for a hawk to keep pulling and picking at it to satisfy her hunger. For tiercels and all hawks of about the same size, rabbits’ or leverets’ feet, with the lower part of the leg, make capital tirings. So do the necks of fowls and ducks, which a falconer should always cause to be reserved for him when any poultry is slain for the kitchen. The foot of an old hare is not too tough for a strong falcon. The small hawks will generally be kept employed for a good many minutes by the two outer joints of a duck’s or old pigeon’s wing. These tirings should be given whenever a hawk is short of exercise, or fidgety on the block or perch. Their effect is not only to strengthen all the muscles—for it is quite hard work picking the scanty scraps of food off the bones and skin amongst which they lie hid—but also to engross the attention of the hawk, which would otherwise very possibly be pining more or less sadly for freedom, and often jumping off in the vain endeavour to attain to that blessing. The frequent picking of bones also keeps a hawk’s beak from growing down at the point to an unnatural length. A man who tells you that he often has to cope his hawk stands detected of being in the habit of not giving her sufficient tirings. Another most valuable use of these tough morsels has been already referred to. It is discovered during the first period of manning the hawk, when the necessary job of carrying is found to be ten times more agreeable and better performed if, while the pupil has perforce to stand on the fist, she has some inducement to do so in the shape of a fowl’s “drumstick” or the wing of a goose, off which almost all the meat has already been picked. No better advice is given by Mr. Freeman—though every one of his counsels is admirable—than to prolong as much as possible the meals which a half-trained hawk takes on the fist. Often the delicacy on which you are regaling her will be tender in one part and tough in another. For instance, it may be the full-fleshed leg of some fowl, off which the meat can easily be torn, with a part of the back, consisting chiefly of skin and bone. If your rather shy pupil takes kindly to the least manageable part of her appointed dinner, let her pick at it, and laboriously polish with many applications of her beak the ill-covered bones of the back, stroking her from time to time with a pencil or with the right hand. Possibly she will not yet stand such acts of familiarity, but bate off. When she is on the fist again, let her recommence operations without taking any liberties with her. Reserve your attentions with the stick for the time when she will be busy discussing the more succulent morsels in the menu, and when she is more likely to submit, without much protest, to the indignity of being stroked. So also, while she is pulling contentedly at the juiciest parts of the joint, you may take her more freely into the presence of men, horses, dogs, and children—in fact, introduce her to more society. The bolder you become the more inclined she will be to let her mistrust prevail over her fondness for the feast, and the less exclusively she will confine her attention to it. Thus a pigeon’s wing, which it would take a fully-trained tiercel less than five minutes to dispose of, may, with a falcon caught only a fortnight ago, engage her attention for nearly half an hour.
With tirings there will often be a small quantity of castings which will be swallowed with the pickings of meat. The trainer must judge for himself whether enough of them has been thus taken during the day to form a proper pellet, or whether more should be given in another way. In feeding up upon quarry which they have themselves killed, whether on the fist or on the ground, hawks will almost always naturally take castings enough. But when the meal consists of beef, or of anything that has been skinned or plucked quite bare, it will be necessary either to add some feathers or fur, or the like, scattering it about on the meat which the hawk is about to swallow, or else the casting may consist of a strip of skin with fur or feathers left on it, and a piece of meat at one end. While swallowing the meat the hawk will gulp down the skin attached to it, and thus with one or two mouthfuls give herself the required quantity of castings. Some falconers make up the casting into a sort of pill, and cram their hawks with it; and I believe this plan answers the purpose very well, though I have seldom if ever tried it. It is not, of course, necessary to give castings every day. But they are generally beneficial, and always, as far as I know, harmless. Some of the old falconers advise not to give castings on days when a hawk has bathed; but I am unable to give the reason for this. Castings are taken daily by wild hawks, which certainly have less need of them than tame ones. And if, through laziness or any other cause, the falconer omits for days in succession to give any, it is pretty certain that his hawk’s crop and stomach will become clogged with a sort of mucus, which will either make her dull, sluggish, and morose, or otherwise impair her general health. Castings should be given rather late in the day than early; and after they have been taken the hawk must always be kept unhooded at about the time when she may be expected to throw them up, i.e. from about the fifth hour after she has swallowed the casting, until she has cast. For this reason, if for no other, when it is intended to train passage hawks in any place, it must always be possible to darken artificially a part of the room, so that hawks can sit there bareheaded on the perch after castings have been given.
Another article which may in a sense be included in the category of diet, is one which will somewhat surprise the reader who has heard nothing about falconry before. This is “rangle,” which is nothing more nor less than small stones or pebbles, swallowed after the manner of castings, and with a similar purpose and effect. After being taken into the crop these exceedingly indigestible delicacies—popularly supposed to be dear to ostriches only—collect around themselves by some special process of attraction a quantity of that same mucus which is apt to accumulate in a hawk’s internal organism. When afterwards they are thrown up—for not even the greediest goshawk will actually assimilate stones—they come up with this oily coating adhering to them, having operated as a sort of emetic, without any of the disagreeable concomitants of physicking with drugs. Why the purpose for which rangle is given cannot be as effectually accomplished by simple castings of feather or fur, I am afraid I cannot explain ; but these latter do not appear to be able to clear the hawk’s inside of the particular kind of superfluous humours which are extracted by the harder substance. Possibly the weight of pebbles causes them to descend farther into the crop, and thus clear it more thoroughly than any such light material as can be given by way of castings. For the small hawks rangle may be given by scattering a few pinches of rather fine gravel on the meat at which they are picking. It is a good plan also to scatter about, close to the blocks of any hawks for which a dose of this kind is thought good, a few stones of a round smooth shape, varying in size from that of a horse-bean for a falcon, to that of a sweet-pea seed for a jack-merlin. The patient often knows instinctively when such a dose is likely to do her good, and swallows one or more of the stones voluntarily. If she does not, and it is thought advisable that she should be dosed whether she likes it or not, the hawk may be cast, and the tasteless pill slipped into her mouth, and pushed down with a small stick. Latham, who was a great stickler for rangle, tells a quaint story of a hawk which he owned. He stuffed her with sixteen stones, which she threw up in due course. The stones were picked up and washed, and put down again near the hawk’s block on the following evening. And every day for a month successively this very accommodating hawk voluntarily picked up and swallowed some dozen of the stones, which were daily collected, washed, and put down again. When a hawk, after moulting, is taken out, or “drawn,” as the old writers call it, from the mews, it is generally beneficial to give her rangle. Hack hawks, when taken up, are often all the better for it; and when a hawk seems dull, or displays dyspeptic symptoms, she may not unfrequently be cured off-hand by the same simple expedient.
Every evening the falconer, having fed up all his hawks (and possibly himself) and noted down in his register what has been killed or done by each of them, should collect all the bodies or pelts of the slain which have not been used as food, and bestow them in a separate place in his larder, so that the results of one day’s campaigning may not get mixed up with those of a previous day, and it may be known how long each unfortunate has been killed. In hot weather no small bird, and very few other things, are fit to be given to a hawk if they have been dead more than twenty-four hours. In the tropics, of course, meat goes bad still more quickly; and at about tiffin-time everything which has been killed earlier than on the same day should be cleared out of the hawks’ larder. If the falconer can get to roost soon after his charges he will think himself fortunate. For the making up of his diary is, on busy days, quite a business in itself. Then it is possible that some accident has occurred. If there has been a broken feather, the damaged hawk must be imped. If one is amiss, measures must be taken for applying the proper remedies. If a jess is worn, it must be replaced. But the worst trouble is if a hawk has been left out. Then the wretched falconer must make up his mind to set forth before daybreak on a long and weary search. But of these pains and griefs, to which the poor man may always be a victim, we shall have to speak in future chapters.