once, when confined to his bed with the gout, he insists upon being carried out in a litter for the same purpose.
The sport of brook-hawking necessarily belongs to an aquatic district, where rivers, meres, ponds, &c., are frequent, the game being ducks, teal, widgeon, &c. To train your hawk for this sport, procure three or four tame ducks of the same colour as the wild one, and throw her up one of these daily for as many days. When she brings them down, suffer her to plume them at her leisure, giving her the heads and necks for her reward; then get several more which, on trial, you know to be good flyers, and send one of them with a servant before you to a pond surrounded with bushes, where he is to be hid till your arrival. On coming to the same place, strike the bushes with your pole, as a signal for your servant to cast the duck into the air, but without discovering himself. The hawk being sharp-set will swoop directly after her, and bring her down in an instant, selecting the mallard “young and gay, whose green and azure brighten in the sun.” She is now completely made, and after a few more similar lessons you may boldly enter your falcon at wild game. Creep as near as possible to the pond or marsh, beating the bushes or hedges to raise the fowls. As soon as she brings one of them down, let her plume and amuse herself with it, and then reward her as usual.
In partridge hawking, when the game rises, the falcon will swoop down upon it with wonderful velocity, and either kill at its first flight, or force it to take refuge in a bush or hedge. In the latter case the hawk makes her point, that is, rises perpendicularly in the air, and hangs with quivering wings over the spot where the partridge dropped into cover. The falconer must be on horseback, provided with a steady pointer and one or two spaniels under good command. When a bird is marked down, or pointed by the dog, the hawk is to be unhooded and cast off (thrown from the fist). She will wheel in airy circles around her master, and if of a good race, mount to a considerable height, the higher the better. If she ranges at too great a distance, make her to incline inwards by the voice and lure.
The gyr falcon was the ancient falconer’s prime favourite—a present, as already observed, meet to be offered to the monarch on his throne. She is the boldest, the most perfect winged, and, in proportion to her weight, the strongest both for action and endurance of all the feathered tribe. Dwelling in inclement Iceland, subjected to violent winds, heavy snows, and protracted rains, and often compelled to endure severe abstinence in a locality where there is no tree, hardly even a bush, for the shelter of a bird, and requiring at other times to range for several hundred miles before she can procure a meal either for herself or her young, the gyr falcon has indeed a very laborious life, which it bravely upholds. The weight of a female Icelander is about three and a half pounds; its length from bill to tail about twenty-three inches; the spread of its wings above four feet. Fine stuffed specimens may be seen in the British Museum. She is excellent for hawking at the heron.
Lo! at his siege,[1] the hern,
Upon the bank of some small purling brook,
Observant stands, to take his scaly prize,
Himself another’s game. For mark, behind,
The wily falconer creeps; and on his fist
Th’ unhooded falcon sits: with eager eyes
She meditates her prey, and, in her wild
Conceit, already plumes the dying bird.
*****
The falcon hovering flies,
Balanc’d in air, and confidently bold,
Hangs o’er him like a cloud;[2] then aims her blow
Full at his destined head. The watchful hern
Shoots from her like a blazing meteor swift.
*****
Observe th’ attentive crowd; all hearts are fixed
On this important war. The vulgar and the great,
Equally happy now, with freedom share
The common joy. The shepherd-boy forgets
His bleating care; the labouring hind lets fall
His grain unsown; in transport lost, he robs
Th’ expectant furrow; and, in wild amaze,
The gazing village point their eyes to heaven.
The Loo Hawking Club wear appropriate uniform, “the Lincoln green,” and those beautiful, slender, black feathers found at the back of a mature heron’s neck, in their caps, set in a jewelled aigrette. The heron’s plume, as most people know, has ever been the distinguished symbol of knighthood, and of noble and princely rank. To gain this much coveted falconer’s trophy, the members of the United Loo Hawking Club gallop as recklessly (what more need be said?) as in a fox hunt after Reynard’s brush.
These are expensive joys, fit for the great,
Of large domains possessed. Enough for me
To boast the gentle spar-hawk on my fist,
To fly the partridge from the bristly field,
Retrieve the covey with my busy train,
Or, with my soaring hobby, dare the lark.
Daring larks is a minor species of falconry. The hawk cast off the fist hovers a few feet above the falconer’s head, whilst he quarters any likely field. The larks feeding there, terrified at the sight of their ancient enemy, lie on the ground close as stones. The sportsman, carrying in his hand a little contrivance like the angler’s landing-net, drops it over any number of larks he pleases, the birds submitting to be thus captured, rather than encounter the swoop of the hawk the moment they take wing, and terrified by her tinkling bells.[3]
- ↑ The place where he stands fishing.
- ↑ About the year 1844, there was a wonderful hawk, belonging to the Loo United Hawking Club, named Bulldog, which generally took his heron at the third stoop—a feat unsurpassed. Two falcons, named Sultan and De Ruyter, in their third year, killed, at Hockwold, Norfolk, and at Loo, fifty-four herons; and subsequently, fifty-seven herons the same year. This Club consisted of about fifty members, under the immediate patronage of the King of Holland, with His Royal Highness the Prince Alexander of Holland at its head. It had many English subscribers, and those particularly zealous in originating it are the Duke of Leeds, the Lord Berners, Hon. Charles Wortley, and Mr. Gage Earle Freeman, Premier Falconer of Britain.
- ↑ Even the largest game, when unsuccessfully chased into covert by a falcon, will almost suffer itself to be trodden on, rather than rise to the enemy that soars remorselessly overhead, awaiting till it is sprung. So Shakespeare, who was an adept in hawking, and every sylvan sport,—
“The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.”
“Henry VI.,” part iii., act i., sc. 1.
