Now, very early in the season on the moors, and through the whole of September with partridges, it is better to wait for a point before the hawk is cast oft, for this saves time, and you know that you have game under you; but at that period of the season which we have named, grouse rise the moment man or dog is seen, and you would have a bad chance indeed were you to fly your hawk out of the hood (i.e., from the fist) at them. The best way is to keep your dog to heel, not to talk, and, just before you show yourself in some likely place, to throw up the falcon. When she has reached her pitch, which she will soon do, hurry the dog on, run, clap your hands, and get the birds up as soon as may be.
The hill is ascended, "The Princess" is at her pitch—where she would remain, following her master and "Shot" the pointer, for ten minutes if necessary. Some minutes pass: an old cock-grouse, put up by a shepherd-dog, rises a couple of hundred yards off. Hoo-ha-ha-ha! "The Princess" vanishes from her post, more rapidly than the knights in "Ivanhoe" left theirs. She does not droop or fly near the ground (she has had too much experience for that), but almost rises as she shoots off after him. Had he risen under her, she would have cut him over; but this is a different affair. They are soon out of sight down the hill; but a marker has been placed that way. "I think she has killed him, sir," he shouts presently; "but it's a long way. No, she's coming back; she must have put him into cover." Up and down hill, it would take us twenty minutes to get there; and see! she is over our heads, "waiting on" again, and telling us, as well as she can, to spring another. A point! how is that?—only that there are some more which dare not rise because they have seen her. "Hi in, 'Shot!'" Again the falconer's shout startles his friend; again "The Princess" passes through the air like an arrow. "All right this time, sir," cries the marker; "I see her with it under yon wall." She has scarcely begun to eat the head as we reach her. One more flight. She is lifted on the grouse; the leash is passed through the jesses, and then she is hooded. Let us rest for ten minutes. Again, she is "waiting on," again she flies; but this time, though we see the flight for three-quarters of a mile, the birds top a hill, and we are an hour in finding them. The grouse, however, is fit for cooking even then; only the head, neck, and some of the back have vanished: it is plucked nearly as well as though it had been in the hands of a cook. That will do, and very good sport, too, considering we had but one hawk. Let us now feed her up on beef, and hood her.
In the very early part of the season, with grouse, and commonly with partridges, it is usual (as we have hinted) to wait for a point; the hawk is then cast off, and the birds are sprung when she has reached her pitch.
Goshawks, which may be occasionally procured from the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, or directly from Sweden or Germany, are considered by some falconers to be difficult birds to manage. That they are sulkily disposed is certain; but in hands accustomed to them, and when they are constantly at work, they are exceedingly trustworthy, even affectionate, and will take as many as eight or ten rabbits in a day. They are short-winged hawks, and have no chance with anything faster than a rising pheasant; they are [{499}] excellent for rabbits, and a few large ones will sometimes hold a hare. In modern practice they are never hooded, except in travelling, and are always flown from the fist, or from some tree in which they may have perched after an unsuccessful flight.
There are probably, in these islands, about fifteen practical falconers, three or four of whom are professional; of the latter, John Pells and the Barrs are well worthy of mention.
John Pells was born at Lowestoft in 1815, and went, when he was thirteen, with his father to Valkneswaard to take passage-hawks for the Didlington Subscription Club; so that he was very soon in harness. The elder Pells commenced his career at the age of eleven, and was in every respect a perfect falconer; he was presented by Napoleon I. with a falconer's bag, which is now in possession of the Duke of Leeds. He died in 1838. The present John Pells has had all possible advantages in his calling, and has made every use of them. He was falconer to the Duke of Leeds, to Mr. O'Keeffe, to Mr. E. C. Newcome, to the late Duke of St. Albans, and now attends to the hawks which the present duke is bound, either by etiquette or necessity, to maintain. Pells also sells trained hawks, and gives lessons in the art of falconry. He was at one time an exceedingly active man, and spent six months in Iceland, catching Iceland falcons. After enduring a good deal of cold and fatigue, he brought fifteen of these birds to Brandon, in Norfolk, in November, 1845. He is now too stout and too gouty for strong exercise, but his experience is very valuable.
Too much can hardly be said in raise of John and Robert Barr (brothers). Their father, a gamekeeper in Scotland, taught them, in a rough way, the rudiments of falconry, They are now, and have been for a long time, most accomplished falconers, When in the employment of the Indian prince Dhuleep Singh, John Barr was sent to India to learn the Indian system of falconry. There is some notion now of his being placed at the head of a hawking club about to be established in Paris; and English falconry might well be proud of such a representative. Beside the Pells and the Barrs, we have Paul Möllen, Gibbs, and Bots—and one or two more—all good.
In consequence of the great rage for game-preserving which obtains in the present day, it does not seem unlikely that the peregrine falcon may, in time, be as thoroughly exterminated in Scotland and Ireland as the goshawk has already been. At present, however, falconers find no difficulty in procuring these birds, if they are willing to pay for them. In a selfish point of view, therefore, they have nothing of which to complain. But it might become a question, at least of conscience, whether mankind have the right, though they possibly may have the power, of blotting out from the face of creation—so long as there is no danger to human life and limb—any conspicuous type of strength or of beauty. The kingfisher is sought to be exterminated on our rivers, the eagle and the falcon on our hills; and it is brought forward in justification of this slaughter—at least it is brought forward in effect—that the sportsman's bag and the angler's creel are of much more importance than the wonderful works of God. To all that is selfish in these strict preservers of fish and of game it may be opposed that part of the food of the kingfisher consists in minnows; that the fry of trout and salmon, when not confined in breeding-boxes, are rarely procured by this bird, which constantly feeds upon the larvae of the Dytiscce and Libelluae, the real foes of the fry; that the peregrine falcon, though she undoubtedly kills very many healthy grouse, purges the moors of diseased ones, and drives away the egg-stealing birds. And to all that is generous in these martinets of preservation it may be submitted that true sport has other elements than those of acquisition and slaughter; that the pleasure of a ramble on the hills [{500}] or by the river is sadly dashed if you have struck out some of the beauty of the landscape; and that the incident of a flight made by a wild hawk, or the flash of a kingfisher near the angler's rod, is as lively and as well worth relating as the fall of an extra grouse to the gun, or the addition of another trout to the basket.