It is a good plan, when a hawk is out, and there are more searchers available than one, for one of them to stay at home a good deal, so that if news of the truant is brought from any quarter he may at once set off with his lure, and hurry straight to the spot indicated. It is vexatious after a twenty-mile walk to find on returning that if you had saved your trouble and sat quietly at home you would probably have been by now in possession of your fugitive. The labourers and other people who are likely to catch sight of a lost hawk should be warned not to attempt to catch it,—which is a feat that yokels have an almost insuperable desire to undertake,—but to come at once and bring word to the owner or his falconer. Rewards should be offered and paid for any such information which results in the recapture, but not otherwise, unless there is corroborative evidence as to the facts reported; for otherwise the too generous falconer may find that whenever one of his hawks is lost several King Richards are reported in the field at the same time, though not at the same place.
After a hawk has been recaptured, it behoves the captor to consider what sort of preparation, if any, is required before she is flown again. Much will depend, of course, upon the character of the individual. A case has been very recently mentioned in print, where a falcon lost in a flight at rooks in the spring was only recaptured in autumn, after more than twenty weeks’ liberty, and yet was then nearly as tame as when his holiday began. On the other hand, I have known a hawk in one week become so wild and shy that the manning of him and making him to the lure took nearly as long as if he had just been caught on the passage. A day, or even two, naturally has little enough effect in nullifying in an eyess the lessons which she began in early life. Two or three days' flying at the lure, and a slight reduction in the quantity and quality of her repasts, will generally make her obedient and reliable enough. But with a passage hawk it is quite a different story. Often you will have to hark back to some of the practical arguments which you used before, when she was being laboriously converted from a wild into a tame creature. Washed meat may have to be put in requisition, and when the moment does come to put her on the wing again in the field, great endeavours should be made to give her a good start at her quarry, so that she may again grow reconciled to her master’s mode of operations, and not go off to commence a fresh campaign on her own account.
Very often a hawk, especially if not a very first-class performer, comes back from an outing a good deal improved, not only in health, but in flying powers. Occasionally, however, I have known it to turn out otherwise. The danger is with some hawks that while they are out they may learn to run cunning. This abominable vice is, I think, rare in hawks, especially in young ones. But I have known it in a jack-merlin—not of my own training—as early as in August; and it developed itself very badly in another jack which I lost for three days in September, and which before he was left out had shown no signs of it. The line adopted by the offender is to fly lazily after the quarry, waiting for it to put in, when he marks the place, and going straight to it jumps (if he can) upon the fugitive. Sometimes the offence originates in double flights, when an inferior hawk, having allowed her partner to do all or most of the work, cuts in at the finish and secures the quarry. But it is more rare in merlins than in jacks, which seem to me the most prone of any hawks to this vice. A game-hawk has, of course, little or no temptation to indulge in it, and a rook-hawk would spoil her own game by doing so, as she cannot follow into covert. The fault, when once developed, is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to entirely cure. Double flights should be entirely eschewed; and when the hawk has flown cunning and failed she may be left where she is, unlured and unfed, until later in the day, and then flown again and again until she tries harder. Wild hawks (and trained ones, if long left out) often fall into a habit of picking their flights, i.e. starting at a quarry, and, if they find it a good one, turning back and waiting for an easier chance. On the whole, therefore, if only for this reason, I am averse to leaving out a trained hawk longer than is absolutely unavoidable.
Accidents and Maladies
The care of a hawk’s feathers is a very important and elementary part of the falconer’s duties. If he is naturally clumsy or careless, and yet hopes to do any good in this vocation, he must be continually on his guard against a mishap. Experience and persistent watchfulness will cure him of these defects, or at least deprive them of any very bad effects. But an innate adroitness is certainly much to be desired in any youth whom it is intended to train up as a falconer. The most important of a hawk’s feathers are exactly those which are most easily broken. A single vigorous flap of the wing against any hard obstacle within reach of them may very likely knock off the end of one or two of the long flight feathers, or at least fracture the shaft where it is quite thin, so that the end below the injury has to be taken off and the feather mended. Great care must therefore be taken in carrying a hawk that no such hard substance is ever so near to her that by a sudden movement she can strike it with either wing. Narrow doorways should be avoided entirely, or never entered unless the hawk is hooded and quite quiet on the fist. When walking through a gateway or near an iron railing, stile, post, carriage, or branch of a tree, give it a wide berth. When mounting a horse with a hawk on the hand, get up on the wrong, i.e. the off, side—unless, of course, you carry your hawk habitually on the right hand, like the Indian falconers. Never wear a hat with a hard brim. It is impossible for you to be sure that at some unexpected moment a hawk, hooded or unhooded, will not by a sudden movement just touch the edge with a wing feather.
The wing feathers of the short-winged hawks are more yielding and elastic than the straighter ones of the long-winged, and will stand a greater strain. Worst of all are merlins, whose principal feathers are almost brittle, especially when the hawk is at all poor in condition. As for the tail feathers, although they are of less importance to a hawk’s flying, they require almost more care than those of the wing. In this particular, short-winged hawks, with their very long trains, are more liable to injury than the others. A very common occasion of damaging a tail feather arises while a hawk is being broken to the hood. As the attempt is made to push the hood on and over the head, the patient flinches and draws back the upper part of her body, forcing the tail strongly against the wrist of the operator, if this is in the way. Those feathers upon which the strain bears hardest are very apt to give way; and even if the awkward falconer has succeeded in getting the hood on, he finds to his chagrin that he has done so at the expense of a damaged hawk. It is of course for this reason that I have advised the tying up of the tail whilst hooding lessons are being given. In actual flights there are certain risks of injury to tail feathers, although if they are all in perfect condition these risks are less than might be supposed. The struggle which occurs on the ground between the hawk and a robust quarry which is bigger than herself severely tries these feathers, as the former is obliged to make use of them to steady herself and resist the efforts of the desperate victim to upset her or drag her along the ground. The fight between a merlin and a partridge or pigeon is of comparatively short duration, as the little hawk, having her foot tightly clenched round the neck of her captive, is sure of its death within a minute or so. But a sparrow-hawk battling with a full-grown partridge has a tough job before her, and is sometimes forced backwards on to her expanded tail, so that it may give way at any weak spot, if there is one. A goshawk which has bound to a full-grown hare, or even a big buck rabbit, has even a hotter time of it.
In double flights, when both hawks have fastened on to the same quarry, and are dragging at it in the hope of obtaining sole possession, there is also danger to the tails. I must admit that I know of no case in which mischief has been done, but it is impossible to watch such a struggle, while hastening up to interfere, without seeing that it may be fatal to some of the feathers so roughly used. The arrival of the falconer on such occasions, in the rôle of mediator, must be welcome to both hawks; and he should at once catch hold of the quarry by one wing, and, holding it tight down, proceed to the work of separating the hawks. When the quarry is a large bird, he will offer to the hawk which seems to have the least firm hold a substitute for the real quarry, and get her to devote her attention to it until the arrival of the second man, when both hawks can be taken up. If both hawks and quarry are small, the first falconer to come up may catch hold of the pelt and lift it up, hawks and all, from the ground against which the tails are being pressed and bent. Once on the fist, the danger is past; and one or other of the combatants may be handed over, with a tiring to replace the contested victim, to the next man who comes up. When double flights are the order of the day, every man who is likely to be up at the death should wear a glove and carry a spare leash, as well as a morsel of tiring for use in a possible emergency. He should also, if mounted, carry a weight and tethering rein at the side of his saddle, so that he may dismount at any time quickly and run in to the struggling hawks.