The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

The head of a specially good hawk is seldom big or round, but wedge-shaped, narrowing from the back rapidly towards the base of the beak, and rather flat on the top than dome-shaped; and there is a prominent eyebrow, with a keen eye, very full and bright. The shoulders come very high up, and are square, as they would be called in a man. There is a great deal of breadth in the upper back and in the breast, where the pectoral muscles are situated, and these muscles may be felt by the hand extending in a firm and ample bulk under the upper points of the wings. The wings themselves have also an appearance of size and strength, and each feather, if separated from the next, is seen to have a broad web and stout shaft. The same may be said of the tail feathers; but in these no extra length is desirable. A short tail with plenty of strength and solidity is better both for useful and ornamental purposes; and a hawk with a long flexible train like a kestrel is not to be preferred. A strong and fast hawk often folds her wings close together, so that the points cross one another quite high up over the tail. The nostrils of a hawk should be large, and the beak short. No indication can be derived from the general colour of the feathers, whether dark or light. As regards size, there is a prejudice against big falcons and small tiercels; but this does not hold good with regard to the short-winged hawks, in which strength is often the chief desideratum. In the case of peregrines a very large falcon is often clumsy; and the majority of brilliant performers whose names have come down with honour in the annals of falconry, were rather under than over the average size. One of the most famous peregrines of this century (Aurora by name) was of such an intermediate size that her owner for some considerable time mistook the sex. As for merlins, I do not remember any exceptionally big one that was not particularly stupid and remarkably slow. A specially small jack, however, is by no means invariably a duffer.

So much for the appearance of hawks when standing at ease on the block or perch. As soon as they are put on the wing the task of distinguishing between them in point of merit becomes very much more easy. The good hawk, when in good condition, has a buoyancy in the air which is wanting in the other. She flies with less effort, and as if she liked the exercise. It seems as natural to her to fly in a slanting line upwards as on a level. When she spreads her wings and sails along they are held out to the very farthest possible extent, and kept “flat”: that is to say, the tips are on a level with the back of the head, or even a little above it. The fast flier does not usually go along steadily through the air, moving, as a boating man would say, on an even keel. On a windy day one wing is often higher than the other, and her course swerves more or less from time to time as she utilises or counteracts with a marvellous art, not understood of men, the wayward pressure of the disturbed air. If you have to choose between a hack hawk, which makes her way along with regular beats of beautifully even wings, like a heron or a dove, and one which hurls herself forward in unexpected lines like a lapwing, by all means choose the latter. Do not suppose that either lapwings or haggard peregrines go crooked by accident, or because they know no better. They can go straight enough if they choose, and will do so if it happens to be their game to play. But just as a skater, having only one skate on the ice, can go along if he moves in divergent lines but not if he attempts to keep a straight line, so it seems that by a sort of zigzaggy course more pace can be got up than by mere plodding straight-forward work. It is only after watching many hundreds of flights that a man can hope even to begin to understand how birds, both pursuer and pursued, manœuvre in the air, trimming their sails, so to speak, so as to increase to the utmost, the one the momentum of her stoop, and the other the speed and suddenness of its shift.

Haggards, and the cleverest younger falcons, fly more with the outer part of the wing than with the part nearest the body. They work, in fact, rather with the joint which in the human body is the wrist than by the movement of the whole arm from the shoulder. The saving of labour so effected is obvious enough. Only, in order to fly thus, the shoulders must be thrown very far back, and the chest far more widely opened than it is by most eyesses. When a hawk in stretching her wings while standing on the block raises them far above her head, or when, having bated off, she hangs down from the fist, and, flopping with her wings, brings them so near together behind her that they seem almost about to touch, be sure that that hawk will fly better than one which carries her wings back to about a level with her back only. It is in stooping at the lure that you can judge best as to the merits of rook-hawks or lark-hawks, while, of course, those of game-hawks and duck-hawks are best tested by merely waiting on. In the latter and more simple case that hawk will be preferred which goes up quickest and to the highest pitch without raking away too far. But note, in stooping to the lure, which comes at it with the most headlong dash, and, having missed it, throws up soonest and highest. In a hard flight that hawk is most successful which after each stoop shoots up farthest, rebounding, as it were, from the unsuccessful stoop, and so keeping the command of the air, so that the quarry, even after the cleverest shift, still finds his adversary on a higher level than himself. The best hawks take great delight in stooping at the lure, and may be cheered when they make a brilliant cut at it, which will increase their excitement and zest. Sometimes, getting to a distance from the falconer, they will rush in at their very best speed, and, on the lure being twitched aside, will shoot up almost in a perpendicular line; then, turning a sort of half-somersault, they will come down in almost the same perpendicular line with the way of the original impetus apparently still on them. A good “footer” at the lure is usually a good footer at her quarry; and good footing is one of the most deadly qualities any hawk can possess.

Another remarkable thing about hawks is that those which are the best-tempered are generally the boldest, strongest, and best fliers. The reason is doubtless that bad temper proceeds to a large extent from timidity; and timidity of mind is, in nine cases out of ten, either due to bodily weakness, or at least connected with it. By bad temper I do not, of course, understand mere anger. Some of the hawks which are the fiercest and most furious when first taken out of the bow-net, prove the easiest to reclaim, and the most obedient when trained. Sulkiness is the worst of the natural vices, and it is unfortunately common enough, not only in goshawks, which are notorious for it, but in all kinds of hawks. Out of one nest I have had one merlin which was almost the best-tempered and one which was almost the worst-tempered that ever I saw. Eyesses are more commonly sulky than passage hawks, and very often display signs of this defect in the days of hack. Later on this develops into some more specific vice, which will perhaps need great care and patience to cure or modify. A short notice of the vices most prevalent amongst hawks will not be out of place, for the treatment of these disorders is almost as well worth understanding as that of their bodily ailments.

Carrying is a fault with which the falconer will generally first become acquainted. The word is ill-chosen, or rather ill-adapted from the Norman “charrier.” It would have been better if our ancestors had used such a term as “bolting” or “lifting,” so that no confusion need have arisen between the word carrying, as applied to holding a hawk on the fist, and as applied to the hawk’s action in taking up and flying away with her food. However, be the name what it may, the practice is one to which all hawks are more or less naturally addicted, although some in a very much greater degree than others. Merlins and hobbies are the most notorious offenders, and wild-caught hawks of the long-winged kinds, though not always troublesome in this way, must be prevented for a long time from developing this habit, or they will infallibly become spoilt and lost. In the chapter on Training, some directions are given for guarding against this predisposition, and curing the mischief when it has already arisen. But of all safeguards and remedies, by far the best is the habit already referred to of constantly instilling into the hawk the idea that your near presence is a thing to be desired, and not disliked. If a merlin or any other hawk shows the least inclination to carry when flying to the lure, or when being taken up from it, I would, for a time at least, never go near her on any occasion without taking a piece of food in the hand and giving it to her. By this means in a few days she will look out for your coming, and even listen for your step with all the pleasurable expectation that other tame animals await the coming of their feeder. And in taking her up have always on your hand a piece of food which is either more tempting or at least more easily devoured than that which she has in her foot. Let the tit-bit be a “mess of pottage”—but not necessarily a big one—for the immediate fruition of which the silly bird (as Turbervile calls her) will barter away all the prospective advantages of a freshly-killed partridge or a dainty pigeon. These latter have to be plucked, mark you, before they can be eaten, whereas the bright red morsel in your hand can be begun at once, without any such trouble and delay.

In bad cases the vice of carrying may be corrected by a rather strong remedy, which, like all other hawking devices, has long been practised. Before resorting to it, see that the lure which you are going to use, whether live or dead, is quite a light one, but very firmly fixed up, so that no part of it, or no part of the food with which it is garnished, can come away. Then exercise your ill-behaved hawk in whatever way you prefer, and let her ultimately get the lure and have it on the ground in her foot. This lure will have a fairly long creance to it; and you will keep hold all the time of the end of the line. Now, as your hawk is on the ground with her food, begin to make in as if you were approaching her after a real flight. You may, however, do so much less cautiously. If she bolts with her meal, let her go four or five yards, and then, with a sharp, sudden pull on the string, twitch the whole apparatus out of her foot, and let it come flying back towards you. What with the “way” that the hawk has on her, and the suddenness of your pull on the string, the lure, if properly fixed up, is bound to be jerked away; and my lady will have to trouble herself to turn round and come back towards you. But, of course, if you so arrange your lure that it will part, and the edible portion of it remain with the hawk, while the inedible comes back to you with the creance, you will have done ten times more harm than you expected to do good. A few lessons of this kind will often cure even a determined carrier. But I have known merlins which were cunning enough never to carry a light lure, knowing from experience that it would be a mere waste of time, and yet, when they had taken a wild lark, never doubted that they could make off with it if they liked.

There is a special sort of carrying to which many long-winged hawks are prone, and it is still more difficult to cure than the practice commonly so called. A hawk which is much fed on the fist, and little on the ground—especially on damp or uncomfortable ground—will, after taking her quarry and killing it, stand still on the ground, looking round with a restless air. And after a while, thinking, apparently, that the spot where she is is not exactly the most convenient that could be found for a meal, will get up, pelt in hand, and fly off in search of one more desirable. This is done out of no feeling of mistrust or deliberate conviction that her prize is likely to be taken from her. Thus the fact that the hawk is quite tame, and even likes your company at her dinner, is no safeguard against this vexatious habit. I have known a jack-merlin which was frequently easy to take up, bolt with a full-sized lark, and carry it, as if it weighed no more than a feather, for nearly half a mile, searching for a place which was good enough for my lord to picnic on, and disdaining several flat mounds which lay in his way, and which would have formed luxurious tables. The same hawk once carried a lark about six hundred yards in one direction, and then, seeing no specially attractive ground on that side, came back the whole way, and, flying past at about fifty yards distance, settled on a rough, dirty heap two or three hundred yards in a different direction. Had he gone straight on for the same length of time in the original direction, he would either have been lost and left out, or only found by accident after a search of long duration. Sometimes a hawk, too dainty to feed on the ground amongst prickly stubble or tall, wet turnip-leaves, will go off with her quarry into a tree, which is not a particularly comfortable dining-place, but which she chooses to prefer. Mr. St. Quintin had a fine falcon which persisted in this vice, until he actually got rid of her.

Other hawks, especially merlins, delight in going off to ricks to plume and eat their quarry. There are not many trees in places where the best merlins are flown, but there are always plenty of ricks. Sometimes it is possible to climb these structures; and many a time has the falconer, if a small man, been hoisted up on the shoulders of some stalwart friend, or, if he is stalwart himself, has given a back to some smaller man, or even a man and a boy, ladderwise. Often, however, the rick is unclimbable. Then what is to be done? for you cannot drag a ladder for miles over the downs. The surest way is to carry a long coil of string, with a bullet at one end. Stand at one side of the rick on which your hawk is quietly and contentedly plucking her victim; sling the bullet over the top of the rick, and as nearly over the head of the hawk herself as your skill and the wind will allow. Then, if you have an attendant, let him take hold of the end of the string which has no bullet attached, and which has not gone flying over the rick. If you have no companion, peg down this last-mentioned end at a good distance from the rick. Then walk to the other side and pick up the bullet. Pulling the string taut, drag it sideways, so that the line scrapes along the top of the rick, and, coming to the hawk’s self-chosen dining-place, sweeps the whole affair, dinner, hawk, and all, away. If the line should get entangled in the quarry, so much the better; you can pull it down to the ground. If not, the hawk may, of course, carry to another rick, and recommence the same trick. But after repeated scrapings-off she generally gets sick of the worry, and condescends to go down to the ground.

A simpler and more unceremonious way of interfering with the offender is to pelt her with clods of earth, or even flints, until one of them either hits her or goes so near that she thinks it advisable to decamp. I have known a hawk sit so stolidly on a rick that though flints went within two inches on either side of her, she took no notice, and went on eating. Others, old offenders, know as well as their master what happens when they go to rick. They would be rather surprised if they did not see him bending down as he makes his way towards them, collecting suitable missiles, and if he did not begin at once the familiar sport of hawk-stoning. Such hawks may be called rick-hawks; and they are about as trying to the temper as anything which the falconer has to contend with. They are, however, not quite so bad as tree-hawks. A falconer who is possessed of one of these last-named treasures must add to his other accomplishments that of being a good shot with a small stone.