The art and practice of hawking - Modern Prepper

10 ART AND PRACTICE OF HAWKING
synonym for falconry, which also, if interpreted strictly according
to the ornithological theory, ought to be regarded as dealing
with the long-winged species.
The two-fold division, however, no matter whether it is into
falcons and hawks, or into short-winged and long-winged hawks,
seems to be insufficient and unsatisfactory. For eagles, which
have been, and still are, extensively used in a sport for which the
only English names are hawking and falconry, remain unincluded
in the two usually accepted classes. No eagle can properly
be called either a hawk or a falcon ; and in order to find
a place for them amongst the birds trained and flown at quarry,
it seems necessary to institute a third class. What order of
precedence should be taken by such new class is a matter
of small consequence. In symmetry of shape, in its mode of
flying, its character, and its tastes, the eagle is as inferior to the
true hawk as the latter has always been deemed to be to the
true falcon ; and in this work, as in others on falconry, the
first place has been retained for the long-winged hawks, and the
second for the short-winged, leaving a third place for what little
it seems necessary to say about such eagles as we know to have
been flown at game.
The long-winged hawk is known by the following characteristics
:—The second primary feather in the w^ing, reckoning from
the outside, is the longest, or at least equal in length to any
other, as in the merlin, which has the second and third feathers
very nearly or quite of the same length. The upper mandible
has on each of its sides, about a third part of the distance
from the point to the cere, a projection somewhat resembling a
very blunt tooth. The eye is dark brown. The wing is long
enough in the outer joint to come down, when closed, considerably
more than half-way between the end of the tail coverts and
the end of the tail itself, and in some cases, as in the hobby, as
far as the tail, or even farther.
In the short-winged hawks the wing is comparatively short
in the outer joint, and, when expanded, presents a rounded
appearance at the end, the fourth primary being the longest,
and the first very short. That emargination, or narrowing in,
of the feather near its end, which is observable in the first two
primaries of the long-winged hawk, is still more pronounced in
the short-winged, and is conspicuous in the third and fourth
primaries also. The tail is long, and large when expanded. The
iris is of some shade of yellow, light or dark. The upper mandible
curves in a smooth line, without any projecting tooth.
In the eagles the tail is shorter and stouter. The outer