Practical Falconry: To Which Is Added, How I Became a Falconer

From the beginning of the Chap. I. - Preliminaries. When, at the end of May last, I said "Good-bye" to Falconry as a writer on the subject, I was not prepared for the demand which was afterwards made for a practical treatise. That demand, however, induced me to appear again, for "positively the last time;'' and I now offer my readers in a volume of "The Field Library" what I lately offered them in the paper itself, some few, but I trust thoroughly practical, chapters on the Art of Falconry. I make no further preface, for my object is to keep entirely to the subject before me, beginning at the beginning, placing myself as much as possible in the position of a person who knows nothing of falconry, and trying to present such a treatise to my readers as I desired many years ago to obtain for myself. Let me suppose, in the first place, that a man has some sort of floating feeling that he should like to see the falconry which he has read of in the " Waverley Novels," in some old book of British sports, or has heard of, for some years, as being really now carried out in this country. Let me suppose, further, that he is inclined to take up the matter himself. He will want a tutor; and the first questions probably which he will ask are, "What sort of hawks should I have, and where can I get them?" I answer-What is the character of your country?-what expense do you care to go to? - have you a manor of your own; or, if not, have you friends who will give you pretty frequent permission? Because the kind of country, the depth of pocket, the courtesy of friends, are all very necessary elements in this as in many other sports. If you are rich, and have opportunities for hawking game, and wish to hawk it, engage a professional falconer; but take care that he is a man accustomed to game-hawking. If you are a poor man, intending to hawk game, and having some opportunity of doing so, strive to know some good falconer, who will really show you the thing; and also-if I may venture to say so-read these chapters, which are, honestly, the result of long experience. I need hardly speak of the character of country to the rich man, for he can most likely command countries of different character; but the man who can only hawk here or there will certainly want to know, at any rate, what birds not to keep. Let us suppose that he has no game-no rabbits even-but that there is an open common near him affording rooks, magpies, pigeons, larks. Not the goshawk then; his hawks are the peregrine and merlin. Does he live near moors on which he can hawk? Still the peregrine. On fairly-open partridge ground? The peregrine still. But the goshawk is the bird for a very inclosed country; and, should he care to fly the sparrow-hawk, he may add that. This is just a rough and general answer to the question, "What sort of hawks a man ought to have?" And now we come to the second point: "How is he to procure them?"