The art and practice of hawking - Modern Prepper

THE GOSHAAVK 159
When he was unsuccessful, instead of coming straight back, he
would throw up two or three hundred feet, moving his head
from side to side as he flew. Sometimes he would come down
upon partridges on the ground, so as to put them up all round
him, and then, if there was no friendly hedge at hand, he was
pretty sure to have one. It was no doubt a great feat to get
him fully trained in so short a time after his capture as fifty-six
days. Pity his brilliant career was so soon ended by death
Almost all the partridges taken, by one hawk or the other, were
captured in fair flight, without any routing about in hedges or
other covert.
To show what goshawks will do when well worked, I may
mention that Mr. St. Quintin's falconer (now the head falconer
of the Old Hawking Club) took out his female goshawk in
November 1885, and gave her seventeen chances at rabbits
lying out in the grass. She caught them all, but being a bit
blown, let the last one go. Sir Henry Boynton's goshawk. Red
Queen, on 2nd December 1895, killed as many as twenty-four
rabbits in one day.
The illustration is a portrait of " Gaiety Gal," the goshawk
which, while she was owned by Mr. Arthur Newall and flown
by him, killed in one season fifty-five hares, nineteen rabbits,
two pheasants, one partridge, one wood-pigeon, one Norfolk
plover, one landrail—total, eighty head. This fine hawk was
afterwards sold for i^2o ; and the vendor always considered that
he had been a loser by the bargain.