A most important period in the life of any hawk arrives when she begins to undergo the ordeal of moulting. The annual or biennial change of plumage which occurs naturally in almost all birds affects more or less powerfully their health and condition, robbing them for the time of a certain amount of their strength and vigour, as well as depriving them of a part of the actual mechanical apparatus which serves as their means of locomotion. Thus we have seen that skylarks, when putting on a new set of feathers in August, are very much less able to escape from a hawk than when that process has been completed. To the hawk, whose very subsistence depends mainly upon his flying powers, it is obvious that the loss of any big feathers in the wing must be at least a very serious inconvenience, especially if it is combined with a weakening of the whole bodily organism. Nature has not, therefore, allowed the young hawk to mate or breed until after the first moult. At the time when he or she would naturally be busied with family cares—that is, when she is nearly a year old—the minor but still formidable effort of moulting is deemed a sufficient trial. Only when, after assuming the adult plumage, she has kept herself through the whole of a second winter is she called upon to undertake the arduous task of feeding not only herself, but also two or three ravenous and helpless youngsters. The first moult of the young hawk is also arranged to take place at that time of year when it is least difficult for her to find her own living. While the big feathers of her nestling plumage are falling out and being slowly replaced by new ones, the bird world is full of newly-fledged quarry, or at least of quarry which are not yet very strong upon the wing. In other words, the moulting of hawks naturally takes place in summer, just when they are most able ? 245 ? to dispense with a part of their flying apparatus and of their energy.

Wild hawks vary a good deal in the date at which they drop their first feather, but trained hawks can be made to vary still more. Experience soon showed that a certain diet and regimen would hurry on the moult and expedite its progress, whereas another would defer and protract it. The young falconer will reflect betimes which of these treatments will best suit his plans, and act accordingly, remembering that, having once decided, he cannot without great inconvenience and even some risk adopt a different system. In any event he will, except in the case of rook-hawks, find himself in some difficulty, for the moulting process is in any case a long one. It is reckoned by months rather than by weeks. In peregrines, which are notoriously slow and bad moulters, it may last a half-year. If ever it is completed in three months the falconer may think himself lucky; and the worst of it is, that the moulting months generally include August and September. The earliest day on which a feather can be dropped is usually well on in March or often early in April, and this is in the case of eyesses, for the passage hawks can hardly be induced to begin till a good deal later. Unless, therefore, the falconer can hurry the feathers down, he will hardly get his hawk even through the moult, and far less ready for active work, by September 1. We shall see, moreover, that the faster the moulting process is pushed on the less fit will the hawk be at the end of it to immediately take the field.

It is thus, in at least nine cases out of ten, practically impossible to fly a hawk in full plumage at rooks in the spring, and afterwards to fly the same hawk also in full plumage at game in August or September. And whether she has been flown in the early part of the year or not, it is still almost equally difficult to so arrange that she shall fly in full feather in the early part of the game season. Hence it is that an eyess of the year, when flown as soon as she is fully trained, comes usually into the field better equipped in the way of feathers than what may be called her elders and betters. Occasionally the moult of a passage hawk, or even adult eyess, can be deferred until August or even September, but this result is not to be reckoned upon with any certainty. The youthful grouse or partridges and their rather hard-worked parents, the adolescent or moulting lark, and inexperienced blackbird, ought all to be a little grateful to Dame Nature for having ordained ? 246 ? that they should be pitted against hawks which are either young themselves or else have to take the air with shortened sail.

Many modern falconers, abandoning all attempts to fully moult their hawks in time for the game season, fly them irrespectively of the condition in which their feathers may be. That is to say, instead of shutting up their hawk, as the old falconers commonly did, when she drops the first feather, and keeping her inactive in the mews until the last new one has come down, they simply go on giving her her daily exercise just as if nothing had happened, and almost, if not quite, ignore the moult. It is wonderful how well some hawks acquit themselves under such disadvantageous conditions, and how little difference to a really fast and clever flyer is made by the loss of even two of the biggest feathers in each wing. On the other hand, a slow hawk, especially if she is not over-gifted with brains, so as to be able to make her head save her wings, is apt to cut rather a poor figure when flown in the middle of the moult at grouse. One of the chief drawbacks incident to this plan—especially with peregrines—is that when flying hard they often moult so badly. Full feeding—or rather overfeeding—is necessary to many trained hawks if they are to moult fast and well; and, of course, when expected to fly in the field they cannot exactly be overfed. Well fed, even to the verge of excessive generosity, they must be, or the new feathers will come down narrow and weak, or even the moult may cease. But to overfeed a passage hawk before putting her up to wait on, is to court the loss of her. Consequently the falconer who flies grouse with a falcon in the moult is confronted with an awkward dilemma. If he keeps his hawk sharp-set he is quite likely to see her leave off moulting, at least for a time, beginning again perhaps later on, and thus protracting the moulting season to an unconscionable length. If, on the other hand, he attempts to keep her fat, he may be pretty sure that she will be disobedient and slow at coming to the lure, and he will be tormented by a constant fear that she will despise it altogether and choose her own place in which to moult at liberty.

Suppose, however, that the falconer, having flown his eyess through the game season or his passage hawk through the rook-hawking season, desires to get her into moult as quickly as possible and through it without delay. While still flying her to the lure for exercise he will take care that she is bountifully dealt with in the matter of rations. He will reserve for her one ? 247 ? of the most cosy places in the hawk-house; and when she sits out at her block he will be specially careful that she is never exposed to uncomfortable draughts or damp or chilly winds. He will encourage her to bathe, in the open air if it is fine and warm, or indoors if the weather is bad, and will, if necessary, take the chill off the bath water. He will carry her often and give her tirings, and, in short, make rather a pet of her; and one morning, as he comes up to her place on the screen-perch, he will espy beneath it a big broad feather shaped rather like the blade of a butter-knife. This will be the seventh feather of one of the moulter’s wings. Sticking it into his hat, presently to be transferred to a rack on the wall, which will hold the remaining big feathers as they drop, he will then carry off my lady to her quarters in the moulting-room.

This apartment, in the words of a high authority, should be so “cleane, handsome, and well kept, that your hawke may rejoyce and delight greatly in it.” We may perhaps have our doubts whether any hawk would delight as much in the most palatial prison-house as in the fresh air of the least picturesque mountain or forest; but, at anyrate, a clean, cheerful, and well-lighted room pleases her better than a dismal garret. A well-ordered moulting-room is a somewhat luxurious apartment, and cannot be provided without some trouble and expense. It should not be cramped in size, but big enough to allow the hawk at least to stretch her wings in a short flight from one end of it to the other. The walls should have no projecting corners, and if they are hung with some soft protecting stuff it will be all the better. The windows—except in those very commendable cases where the room is lighted by a skylight—will be guarded on the inside by perpendicular bars of smooth wood or cane; and the floor will be laid at least more than an inch deep with sawdust or dry sand. Fixed upright into the floor will be a block or two, with padded top; and the room, near its two ends, nearest and farthest from the window, will be crossed by perches, one of which at least should also be well padded. If it is intended that the hawk, or hawks, for which the room is designed shall be left mostly alone in solitary occupation, a bath may be left on the floor; but, as in any case the bath must be emptied and refilled pretty often by some person entering the room, it may be as well to let the bath, when unused, remain outside, where it can be kept clean instead of dirty. The door of the moulting-room should open outwards; and it is a good plan to make it close of its own accord by a ? 248 ? weight or spring, to minimise the chance of its being inadvertently left open.

Goshawks should never be moulted in company, and the bigger falcons only when known to be good-tempered, and that with a companion of the same sex. Tiercels, unless especially cantankerous, may moult in the same room, and the same thing may be said of female sparrow-hawks. All the other small hawks may moult in company with others of the same sex. In fact, in the case of merlins and kestrels there is no harm in associating the two sexes, provided all occupants of the club-room are kept, as they should be, constantly provided with plenty of food. I am, however, disposed to think that when merlins are loose together a good deal of chevying about takes place, which is apt to be dangerous to the growing feathers when the moult is nearly over.

The moulting-room should never be cold, and still less damp. In very wet and chilly weather artificial heat may be used in moderation. For instance, there may be a small fire in the room underneath, or the flue of a lighted fire may pass up one of the sides of the room itself. The window also should by all means face the south rather than the north. The moult is quicker and better when a hawk is kept warm, whereas anything like a chill may check, or at least retard, it seriously. Yet there is, of course, a difference between warmth and stuffiness. Of the two evils, however, I am inclined to believe, with the ancients, that over-ventilation is worse than over-closeness—if, at least, you are anxious to get quickly through with the moult.

The food for a moulting hawk should be nutritious without being too heavy. It should be good and very plentiful. In fact, the bird should be able to eat whenever she has a fancy to, and to eat as much as she will. Accordingly, each time that rations are served out they should be ample to last until the next supply will be forthcoming. In quality the viands may be rich and high-flavoured, if the hawk can stomach them. John Barr moulted a falcon in an exceedingly short space of time by supplying her constantly with the heads, necks, and pinions of fat ducks, keeping her mostly under a small tented shelter, upon the outside of which a summer sun beat down with almost ferocious force. He declared that the feathers, nourished by the fat contained in these succulent meals, came down broader and stronger, as well as faster, than he had ever known in other instances. Thus a “grene goose” was anciently ? 249 ? recommended for moulting hawks’ diet, and on the same principle an ideal food for moulting merlins or sparrow-hawks would be fat quails. These little hawks are, however, often nauseated by eating birds which are very fat. The heads, necks, and pinions of fowls should always be given freely to moulting hawks, not only because the meat on them is of a good kind, but because they make capital tirings, and so provide exercise at a time when exercise is very difficult to find. Mice for the small hawks, rats for goshawks, and rabbits for the other big hawks, should also be often supplied; and plenty of castings should be given, or the internal fat which accumulates in a moulting hawk will either rob her of her appetite or cause some obstinate and perhaps dangerous disorder.

It is not to be supposed that the ancient falconers, who were so fond of physicking their hawks, could omit to discover artificial methods of expediting the moult. A couple of specime............