How to continue and keep a Hawk in her high-flying.
If your Hawk be a stately high-flying Hawk, you ought not to engage her in more flights than one in a morning: for often flying brings her off from her stately pitch. If she be well made for the River, fly her not above twice in a morning; yet feed her up though she kill not.
When a high-flying Hawk being whistled to, gathers upwards to a great gate, you must continue her there∣in, never flying her but upon broad Waters and open Rivers; and when she is at the highest, take her down with your Lure; where when she hath plumed and broken the Fowl a little, then feed her up, and by that means you shall maintain your Faulcon high-flying, in∣wards, and very fond of the Lure.
Some will have this high-flying Faulcon seldom to kill, and not to stoop: yet if she kill every day, al∣though she stoop from a high Gate, yet if she be not rebuked or hurt therewith, she will, I can assure you, become a higher flier every day than other; but she will grow less fond of the Lure. Wherefore your Page 44 high-flying Hawks should be made inwards, it being a commendable quality in them to make in and turn head at the second or third toss of the Lure, and when she poureth down upon it as if she had killed.
And as the teaching of a Faulcon, or any other Hawk to come readily to and love the Lure, is an art highly commendable, because it is the effect of great labour and industry: so it is the cause of saving many a Hawk, which otherways would be lost irrecovera∣bly.
Mark this by the way, that some naturally high-fly∣ing Hawks will be long before they be made upwards, still fishing and playing the slugs; and when they should get up to cover the Fowl, they will stoop before the Fowl be put out: And this may proceed from two causes. In the first place, she may be too sharp set, and in the next place, it may be she is flown untimely, either too soon or too late.
When you see a Hawk use those evil Tatches with∣out any visible cause, cast her out a dead Fowl for a dead Quarry, and hood her up instantly without Re∣ward, to discourage her from practising the like ano∣ther time: half an hour afterwards call her to the Lure and feed her, and serve her after this manner as often as she fisheth in that fashion.
Besides, to correct this errour, the Faulconer ought to consult the natures and dispositions of his Hawks, and should carefully observe which fly high when in good plight, and which best when they are kept low; which when sharpest set, and which on the contrary in a mean between both; which early at Sun-rising, which when the Sun is but two hours high; which sooner, and which later in an evening.
For know that the natures of Hawks are different; so are the time to fly each one: for to fly a Hawk in her proper times, and to fly her out of it, is as disagree∣able Page 45 as the flight of a Gerfaulcon and a Buzzard. There∣fore the Ostrager must fly his Hawks according to their natures and dispositions, keeping them always in good order.
Where by the by take notice, all Hawks, as well Soar-hawks as Mew'd-hawks and Haggards, should be set out in the Evening two or three hours, some more, some less, having respect to their nature as it is stronger or weaker; and in the morning also according as they cast, hooding them first, and then setting them abroad a weathering, until you get on Horseback to prosecute your Recreation.
