and thus saves me the pain of having to reconcile conflicting duties. Otherwise I fancy I should fire, to save appearances, and as a compromise—but probably wide, to save my feelings!
Harriers and Buzzards, especially the former, are the hawks for whose misdeeds the noble and comparatively harmless Peregrine too often suffers. With poetic justice, Peregrines can be trained to take them, and a very fine flight it is. Normandy is the country for this sport, which one of my falconers has also carried out successfully at Chalons. Good riders are needed, as the Peregrine gets sadly mauled in the struggle on the ground unless aid is forthcoming.
A Kestrel, too, affords a very pretty flight; but I scarcely like to fly a tiercel at it in the open country where the flight will end in a kill, as it seems a shame to destroy this little hawk—the farmer's best friend. I once took thirty-nine caterpillars out of the crop of a Kestrel, though the mischievous field mice constitute its more usual food.
I think I have said enough to prove that, after twenty years' labour in the cause, I am at last justified in pronouncing the Revival of Falconry in England to be no longer hopeless. It is, I firmly believe, now possible: whether it is probable must depend mainly on others.
Personally, I can do little more. Military duties leave me neither opportunity nor leisure to enjoy the sport as I used lo do in the happy days of old when, unassisted, I trained and worked all my own hawks. But others are welcome to the result of experience and heavy outlay. I can assure them that my experience, quite apart from my present hawking establishment (which is no trifle!) has been very dearly bought, though I trust not bought in vain.
A very few words will suffice to sum up briefly the advantages we now possess over those we had ten years ago.
We are comparatively free from the scourge of hedge-poppers. Long may we remain so!
We are no longer at the mercy of one professional falconer, and dependent on his good or bad conduct.
We are no longer dependent for supplies on bird-dealers (an untrustworthy fraternity, as a rule), who import the hawks in such bad order as to be practically useless.
