CHAPTER V

Passage Hawks

All big hawks captured after they have begun to prey for themselves are now commonly called passage hawks, although the name, strictly speaking, may not be at all correct. Wild-caught is a more inclusive term; and it is often used in the case of sparrow-hawks, merlins, and hobbies, when casually caught by bird-catchers or gamekeepers, and not killed in the process. We have seen that passage hawk means properly a hawk caught during the period of her first migration southwards. It is, however, of course, possible to capture her either in early autumn before the migration has commenced--in which case a peregrine is more properly called a slight falcon or slight tiercel--or late in the winter, when she has become a lantiner, or in the spring migration, when she is travelling north. But if she has begun to moult before she comes into man's possession, she is correctly described as a haggard. If gamekeepers were a little more alive to their own interests they would often catch sparrow-hawks, and sometimes merlins and peregrines, alive, and dispose of them at a very remunerative price, instead of killing them, often in a most barbarous way, by means of pole-traps and other snares, which destroy or cripple them after hours of torture, and render them almost valueless. But for generations past no systematic attempts have been made in this country to snare wild hawks in an uninjured condition; and if a falconer should be able to obtain any hawk so taken he may consider himself exceptionally lucky. Several such hawks have indeed been caught in England, and, getting rather accidentally into good hands, have turned out very excellent performers. Occasionally a sparrow-hawk or merlin is saved alive out of the nets of a bird-catcher; and these, if heard of before their plumage is ruined, are prizes for which many a falconer will gladly give something like their weight in silver.

But, as a rule, the full-grown hawks which come into the market are captives which have been taken on the autumnal passage by the professional hawk-catchers of Valkenswaard, in North Brabant. The sons of Adrian Möllen, formerly falconer to the famous Loo Club, still carry on this business of snaring peregrines on the great open heath, which for many centuries has been resorted to for a like purpose, and which, of course, takes its name from its renown as a place over which the migrants must often pass. Anyone who wants a wild-caught peregrine should write beforehand to one of these gentlemen, who will probably not fail to send him what he requires. They go out every year, in the months of October and November, and lie in wait daily in their cunningly-constructed huts until they have secured as many captives as have been ordered in various places. A dozen or more are annually required for England, and sometimes a few for France. The variety most in demand is the red falcon, that is to say, the female peregrine in the nestling plumage, not yet moulted. But blue falcons are also sometimes wanted, and of late years there has been some considerable demand for tiercels, both red and blue. Merlins, sparrow-hawks, and an occasional goshawk may be taken, and, still more rarely, a ger. The price for a falcon is four to five pounds, and of a tiercel from three to four. But a special apparatus is required for catching the smaller hawks, which will not usually come to the same lure as a peregrine. If the captured hawk has to be kept for any length of time in the captor's hands before being fetched or sent away, an extra charge is made for her maintenance.

The device whereby the wild hawk is caught in Holland is somewhat elaborate. It has more than once been described in print, and may be briefly noticed here. A hut is first built up with sods of turf in an open part of the plain. It looks from outside like a mere knoll or rising in the ground. A nearer inspection shows a small opening in front, through which a man, or at a pinch two men, can crawl. It is fitted with a low seat inside, and at the back, behind and above the seat, is an aperture something like the small port-hole of a cabin, which can be opened by pulling out a sod of turf, and closed by replacing the same. This is to enable the hawk-catcher to spy out at a hawk which is coming up from behind his back. Outside the hut and in front of it is a sort of small altar or table of turf, on the flat top of which is pegged down, by means of a short creance and jesses, a butcher-bird or shrike. Scraps of meat are set out for the delectation of this feathered watchman, who is also indulged with a miniature hut of his own, into which he may retreat when terrified, as it is hoped that he soon may be. The eyesight of this tethered spy is so keen that he can descry his enemy the hawk at an incredible distance in the sky. Whenever one is approaching, though far out of range of the sharpest human eye, he begins to exhibit signs of alarm. As the hawk comes nearer he fidgets more and more, glancing nervously--or pointing, as they call it--in the direction of the foe. If the latter still comes nearer, he will cry out in his terror, and finally run cowering under the shelter of his hut.

Meanwhile the falconer has not been idle. Snatching the turf shutter from the little window behind him, he takes a look through his field-glass in the direction to which the shrike is pointing, searching for the coming hawk as an astronomer does for a lost star. If, on espying it, he judges that it is a peregrine, he sets to work seriously about the main business of the day.

At some distance from the hut is fixed up a pole with a line--we will call it A--running from the top of it to the hut. To this line, at some yards distance from the pole, is attached a branch line, after the manner of the paternoster used in angling, at the end of which is a live pigeon in jesses. When the line A is slack, the pigeon rests on the ground, or in a hut to which he is at liberty to resort when he likes. But if, by a pull in the falconer's hut, the line A is pulled taut, up goes the pigeon in the air, and flutters about at the end of his branch line, conspicuous from afar. Often there is a second pole at a like distance from the big hut, but in a rather different direction; and to this a second line, B, is attached, with a tame tiercel or peregrine of some sort, rigged out in the same way as the pole-pigeon. This hawk may have a handful of straw or worsted fastened to one of his feet, so that he may look as if he had some dead quarry in possession, and serve the better to attract the wild passager. As the shrike points, and the wild hawk is coming up, the falconer works with a will by the two strings A and B at the pole-hawk and the pole-pigeon. But as soon as the passager is nearly overhead, and the shrike has hidden himself, it is time to let loose the pole strings and let the very live lures attached to it also bolt into shelter.

We now come to another component part of the Dutch hawk-trap. A third line, C, leads from the hut to a small ring-peg in the ground sixty or eighty yards away, passes through it, and a few feet farther on, but at the side, is attached to a live pigeon in a box, out of which it can be pulled by drawing the line. One more particular, and the whole apparatus is complete. On each side of the ring-peg, and about two feet from it, are pegs which hold down the hinges of a bow-net, something like that which was used for catching up the hack hawks. The usual and best way of making a bow-net is to take two equal lengths of strong wire, five or six feet long, and bend each into a nearly semicircular arch. The two ends of each hoop are twisted up into a ring, and the two hoops are joined together so that a sort of easy hinge is formed at the ends. A net of fine but strong string is stretched over the whole circle formed by the two hoops. When it is set, one-half of it is pegged down flat on the ground and the other is folded back over it. To the middle of the upper hoop is attached a fourth long line, D, by which it can be pulled over, so that when the line is taut the hoops form a circle, with the net covering all the space between the hinges. This will explain how the falconer, ensconced in his hut, can, by a pull at the long line D, passing through a ground peg to the arch of the bow-net, pull it over the ring through which the line C passes. Thus there are four lines of which the ends lie in the floor of the hut, each marked with a different colour, and each requiring to be worked with prompt and accurate skill at the eventful moment.

We can now understand the whole process of entrapping the passage hawk, and shall find that it includes the following movements:--(1) Pointing of the shrike; (2) removal of the turf shutter, and observation of the coming hawk through the field-glass; (3) pulling of the lines A and B, by which the pole-pigeon and the pole-hawk are made to flutter or fly about and show themselves; (4) slackening of these lines and escape of the pole-pigeon, pole-hawk, and shrike, under their respective places of shelter. By this time the wild hawk ought to be close at hand, and eagerly looking out for the pigeon which has so mysteriously disappeared. Then (5) tightening of the line C, by which the hitherto unseen pigeon is pulled out of his box, and displayed to the expectant hawk above; (6) capture of this pigeon by the hawk. Next (7) a much stronger and steadier pull is given to the line C, by which the far end of it is dragged--pigeon, hawk, and all--towards the ring between the horns of the bow-net. As soon as the pigeon, with the hawk upon it, has got to this ring, a piece of tape or ribbon fastened on to a particular place on the line C will have been pulled to a certain place within the hut, and will warn the falconer that he need pull it no farther, as all things are now ready for the next and most critical move. Then, holding the line C still tight in one hand, the operator (8) will, with a quick well-sustained effort, tighten the line D, and pull the net over hawk and pigeon. All that remains now for the falconer to do is (9) to make fast the end of the line D round a peg fixed in the hut for that purpose, and then (10) to run out, with his best leg foremost, and take the captive out of the net.

The reader may think this rather a needlessly elaborate and complicated device; but it is a very sure one, when the operator does not bungle. It has stood the test of many centuries, and is as good now as it was in the days of Alfred the Great. There is no doubt that by means of such an apparatus--slightly simplified, perhaps--wild peregrines might be taken on the Wiltshire and Berkshire downs. Lord Lilford once had a hut or huts out in England with some success. A similar apparatus, with a less elaborate hiding-place, would enable keepers or shepherds to catch many a sparrow-hawk and some merlins. For the former there is almost always a good demand. So far is it from being true, as many books assert, that "sparrow-hawks are easy to procure," there are always half a dozen falconers in England who are vainly wishing that they could lay hands on one.

To extract a wild hawk of any kind, but especially a ger, peregrine, or goshawk, from the bow-net is sometimes no laughing matter. To set about it with thickly-gloved hands involves much awkwardness, and is not unlikely, in the case of an inexperienced man, to end in the loss of the hawk. There is also the danger of breaking feathers, or even a bone in the wing or leg. On the other hand, to go to work with even one hand ungloved exposes you, unless you are adroit beyond the average of human beings, to some particularly painful punctures and gashes. There are eight talons or claws, each as sharp as a needle, awaiting your attack, and it will not be the hawk's fault if she does not maul you with them. As for the beak, it is well-nigh sharp and strong enough to nip a piece clean out of the back of your hand. Yet the prisoner must be got out somehow, and moreover must be held quiet while a pair of jesses and a hood or sock are put on. A sock is an article of unpretentious but sterling value to the hawk-catcher. Sometimes it is not a real sock, but a strait-waistcoat of more artificial kind made to serve as an improved imitation of the homely article of clothing originally used by the old falconers. But the common and unimproved sock is quite good enough for the hawk-catcher's purpose. It is turned inside out, in the way familiar to washerwomen, so that at the heel there is an open end, while the toe and top of the sock form the other end. Into that open heel is pushed the head of the captured hawk. The sock itself is then drawn bodily on to and over the hawk's shoulders. The beak, being hooked downwards, will not interfere with the operation. The soft covering is pulled down right over the back, chest, and thighs of the victim, until nothing but the tail and the tips of the wings protrude. If it fits tolerably, the hawk will be effectually strait-waistcoated, and may be laid down on its back like an overturned turtle. A man's sock, big or little, fits a falcon or tiercel fairly; and a boy's or child's sock may be used for the smaller hawks. Before the sock is used a couple of tapes may be sewn across it, one three or four inches from the toe, and another five or six inches farther back, so that when it is on the ends of one tape may be tied--not tightly, of course--round the throat of the captive hawk just in front of the shoulders, and the ends of the other tape round the back, just above the tail. The toe of the sock may then be cut off, so that the hawk's head is left free.

The first captive, once reduced to quiescence for the time being, will be laid out on the floor of the hut or near it, while the falconer returns to his watch-place. For there is no reason why he should not effect another, or even more captures, in the same day. Climatic influences or mere chance may have ordained that for a week or more he should have had no chance, and yet now the hawks should come fast and furiously to the decoy. Long-winged hawks, unlike woodcocks and many other migratory birds, travel with the wind in their faces; and they by no means hurry on their way, pausing, sometimes for some days at a time, at any place where quarry is abundant, where the bathing is good, and where, perhaps, there are other attractions which we dull, earth-treading mortals cannot understand or appreciate. As night comes on, the captives are carried home in their socks, and a rufter hood is put on, after which the socks are cut off, and they are set down on a hillock of soft turf, or, if they show no signs of violent uneasiness, on the screen-perch, the leash having, of course, in either case been attached and made fast. From this moment the person for whom the hawk is intended should by rights assume the ownership and charge of her. It would be absurd to suppose that the hawk-catcher, however good a falconer he may be, should act as trainer too, when he has to go out on the morrow, and perhaps for many days afterwards, to entrap other hawks.

Before bedtime, in the long evening of late autumn, a grand attempt should be made to induce the newly-caught hawk to eat. If she was caught early in the day, and had not already breakfasted, it is possible that the attempt may succeed, especially if she is of a placid and philosophic turn of mind. But do not think that success will, even then, be easily achieved. You may very likely have to wait a long time. Different men, of course, have different methods of persuading a newly-caught hawk to feed; but all agree that it is a very difficult job. Many of the books advise the drawing of meat across her feet as she stands on the fist, and repeating this until she begins to pick at it. Perhaps I have never sufficiently tested this plan. I do not think I can honestly say that I have ever drawn the seductive morsel of meat more than a hundred times successively over the feet of the unwilling feeder. But I must confess that the process, even when protracted to this moderate length, is a little tedious. For my own