The training of the great northern falcons, as well as that of merlins and hobbies, is conducted much on the above principles, but the jerfalcons (gerfalcons or gyrfalcons) will seldom wait on well, and merlins will not do it at all.
The training of short-winged hawks is a simpler process. They must, like falcons, be provided with jesses, swivel, leash and bell. In these hawks a bell is sometimes fastened to the tail. Sparrow-hawks can, however, scarcely carry a bell big enough to be of any service. The hood is seldom used for short-winged hawks—never in the field. They must be made as tame as possible by carriage on the fist and the society of man, and taught to come to the fist freely when required—at first to jump to it in a room, and then out of doors. When the goshawk comes freely and without hesitation from short distances, she ought to be called from long distances from the hand of an assistant, but not oftener than twice in each meal, until she will come at least 1000 yds., on each occasion being well rewarded with some food she likes very much, as a fresh-killed bird, warm. When she does this freely, and endures the presence of strangers, dogs, &c., a few bagged rabbits should be given to her, and she will be ready to take the field. Some accustom the goshawk to the use of the lure, for the purpose of taking her if she will not come to the fist in the field when she has taken stand in a tree after being baulked of her quarry, but it ought not to be necessary to use it.
Falcons or long-winged hawks are either “flown out of the hood,” i.e. unhooded and slipped when the quarry is in sight, or they are made to “wait on” till game is flushed. Herons and rooks are always taken by the former method. Passage hawks are generally employed for flying at these birds, though sometimes good eyases are quite equal to the work. For heron-hawking a well-stocked heronry is in the first place necessary. Next an open country which can be ridden over—over which herons are in the constant habit of passing to and from their heronry on their fishing excursions, or making their “passage.” A heron found at his feeding-place at a brook or pond affords no sport whatever. If there be little water any peregrine falcon that will go straight at him will seize him soon after he rises. It is sometimes advisable to fly a young falcon at a heron so found, but it should not be repeated. If there be much water the heron will neither show sport nor be captured. It is quite a different affair when he is sighted winging his way at a height in the air over an open tract of country free from water. Though he has no chance whatever of competing with a falcon in straightforward flight, the heron has large concave wings, a very light body proportionately, and air-cells in his bones, and can rise with astonishing rapidity, more perpendicularly, or, in other words, in smaller rings, than the falcon can, with very little effort. As soon as he sees the approach of the falcon, which he usually does almost directly she is cast off, he makes play for the upper regions. Then the falcon commences to climb too to get above him, but in a very different style. She makes very large circles or rings, travelling at a high rate of speed, due to her strength and weight and power of flying, till she rises above the heron. Then she makes her attack by stooping with great force at the quarry, sometimes falling so far below it as the blow is evaded that she cannot spring up to the proper pitch for the next stoop, and has to make another ring to regain her lost command over the heron, which is ever rising, and so on—the “field” meanwhile galloping down wind in the direction the flight is taking till she seizes the heron aloft, “binds” to him, and both come down together. Absurd stories have been told and pictures drawn of the heron receiving the falcon on its beak in the air. It is, however, well known to all practical falconers that the heron has no power or inclination to fight with a falcon in the air; so long as he is flying he seeks safety solely from his wings. When on the ground, however, should the falcon be deficient in skill or strength, or have been mutilated by the coping of her beak and talons, as was sometimes formerly done in Holland with a view to saving the heron’s life, the heron may use his dagger-like bill with dangerous effect, though it is very rare for a falcon to be injured. It is never safe to fly the goshawk at a heron of any description. Short-winged hawks do not immediately kill their quarry as falcons do, nor do they seem to know where the life lies, and seldom shift their hold once taken even to defend themselves; and they are therefore easily stabbed by a heron. Rooks are flown in the same manner as herons, but the flight is generally inferior. Although rooks fly very well, they seek shelter in trees or bushes as soon as possible.
For game-hawking eyases are generally used, though undoubtedly passage or wild-caught hawks are to be preferred. The best game hawks we have seen have been passage hawks, but there are difficulties attending the use of them. It may perhaps be fairly said that it is easy to make all passage hawks “wait on” in grand style, but until they have got over a season or two they are very liable to be lost. Among the advantages attending the use of eyases are the following: they are easier to obtain and to train and keep; they also moult far better and quicker than passage hawks, while if lost in the field they will often go home by themselves, or remain about the spot where they were liberated. Experience, and, we must add, some good fortune also, are requisite to make eyases good for waiting on for game. Slight mistakes on the part of the falconer, false points from dogs, or bad luck in serving, will cause a young hawk to acquire bad habits, such as sitting down on the ground, taking stand in a tree, raking out wide, skimming the ground, or lazily flying about at no height. A good game hawk in proper flying order goes up at once to a good pitch in the air—the higher she flies the better—and follows her master from field to field, always ready for a stoop when the quarry is sprung. Hawks that have been successfully broken and judiciously worked become wonderfully clever, and soon learn to regulate their flight by the movements of their master. Eyases were not held in esteem by the old falconers, and it is evident from their writings that these hawks have been very much better understood and managed in the 19th century than in the middle ages. It is probable that the old falconers procured their passage and wild-caught hawks with such facility, having at the same time more scope for their use in days when quarry was more abundant and there was more waste land than there now is, that they did not find it necessary to trouble themselves about eyases. Here may be quoted a few lines from one of the best of the old writers, which may be taken as giving a fair account of the estimation in which eyases were generally held, and from which it is evident that the old falconers did not understand flying hawks at hack. Simon Latham, writing in 1633, says of eyases:
They will be verie easily brought to familiaritie with the man, not in the house only, but also abroad, hooded or unhooded; nay, many of them will be more gentle and quiet when unhooded than when hooded, for if a man doe but stirre or speake in their hearing, they will crie and bate as though they did desire to see the man. Likewise some of them being unhooded, when they see the man will cowre and crie, shewing thereby their exceeding fondness and fawning love towards him....
... These kind of hawks be all (for the most part) taken out of the nest while verie young, even in the downe, from whence they are put into a close house, whereas they be alwaies fed and familiarly brought up by the man, untill they bee able to flie, when as the summer approaching verie suddenly they are continued and trained up in the same, the weather being alwaies warm and temperate; thus they are still inured to familiaritie with the man, not knowing from whence besides to fetch their relief or sustenance. When the summer is ended they bee commonly put up into a house again, or else kept in some warm place, for they cannot endure the cold wind to blow upon them.... But leaving to speak of these kind of scratching hawks that I never did love should come too neere my fingers, and to return unto the faire conditioned haggard faulcon....
The author here describes with accuracy the condition of unhacked eyases, which no modern falconer would trouble himself to keep. Many English falconers in modern times have had eyases which have killed grouse, ducks and other quarry in a style almost equalling that of passage hawks. Rooks also have been most successfully flown, and some herons on passage have been taken by eyases. No sport is to be had at game without hawks that wait on well. Moors, downs, open country where the hedges are low and weak are best suited to game hawking. Pointers or setters may be used to find game, or the hawk may be let go on coming to the ground where game is known to lie, and suffered, if an experienced one, to “wait on” till game is flushed. However, the best plan with most hawks, young ones especially, is to use a dog, and to let the hawk go when the dog points, and to flush the birds as soon as the hawk is at her pitch. It is not by any means necessary that the hawk should be near the birds when they rise, provided she is at a good height, and that she is watching; she will come at once with a rush out of the air at great speed, and either cut one down with the stoop, or the bird will save itself by putting in, when every exertion must be made, especially if the hawk be young and inexperienced, to “serve” her as soon as possible by driving out the bird again while she waits overhead. If this be successfully done she is nearly certain to kill it at the second flight. Perhaps falcons are best for grouse and tiercels for partridges.
Magpies afford much sport. Only tiercels should be used for hunting magpies. A field is necessary—at the very least 4 or 5 runners to beat the magpie out, and perhaps the presence of a horseman is an advantage. Of course in open flight a magpie would be almost immediately caught by a tiercel peregrine, and there would be no sport, but the magpie makes up for his want of power of wing by his cunning and shiftiness; and he is, moreover, never to be found except where he has shelter under his lee for security from a passing peregrine. Once in a hedge or tree he is perfectly safe from the wild falcon, but the case is otherwise when the falconer approaches with his trained tiercel, perhaps a cast of tiercels, waiting on in the air, with some active runners in his field. Then driven from hedge to hedge, from one kind of shelter to another, stooped at every instant when he shows himself ever so little away from cover by the watchful tiercels overhead, his egg-stealing days are brought to an end by a fatal stroke—sometimes not before the field is pretty well exhausted with running and shouting. The magpie always manœuvres towards some thick wood, from which it is the aim of the field to cut him off. At first hawks must be flown in easy country, but when they understand their work well they will kill magpies in very enclosed country—with a smart active field a magpie may even be pushed through a small wood. Magpie hawking affords excellent exercise, not only for those who run to serve the hawks, but for the hawks also; they get a great deal of flying, and learn to hunt in company with men—any number of people may be present. Blackbirds may be hunted with tiercels in the same way. Woodcock afford capital sport where the country is tolerably open. It will generally be found that after a hawk has made one stoop at a woodcock, the cock will at first try to escape by taking the air, and will show a very fine flight. When beaten in the air it will try to get back to covert again, but when once a hawk has outflown a woodcock, he is pretty sure to kill it. Hawks seem to pursue woodcock with great keenness; something in the flight of the cock tempts them to exertion. The laziest and most useless hawks—hawks that will scarcely follow a slow pigeon—will do their best at woodcock, and will very soon, if the sport is continued, be improved in their style of flying. Snipe may be killed by first-class tiercels in favourable localities. Wild duck and teal are only to be flown at when they can be found in small pools or brooks at a distance from much water—where the fowl can be suddenly flushed by men or dogs while the falcon is flying at her pitch overhead. For duck, falcons should be used; tiercels will kill teal well.
The merlin is used for flying at larks, and there does not seem to be any other use to which this pretty little falcon may fairly be put. It is very active, but far from being, as some authors have stated, the swiftest of all hawks. Its flight is greatly inferior in speed and power to that of the peregrine. Perhaps its diminutive size, causing it to be soon lost to view, and a limited acquaintance with the flight of the wild peregrine falcon, have led to the mistake.
The hobby is far swifter than the merlin, but cannot be said to be efficient in the field; it may be trained to wait on beautifully, and will sometimes take larks; it is very much given to the fault of “carrying.”