Page:The Hare.djvu/132

106 covert, not indeed without sustaining a shrewd buffet or two, or perchance getting one of her ears slit, but still alive and safe. Ofttimes she will turn to meet the stoop, and, bounding four or five feet into the air, allow the falcon to pass below her, or, by thus springing to meet her, baffle the stoop altogether. Or if a rut or bramble brake afford the scantiest concealment, she may squat therein and is safe, for the long-winged hawks will not pounce upon and seize their quarry thus motionless on the ground. To prevent this, it was in old times the custom to run, with the hawk, a slow lurcher, and it was probably to his efforts that the hare succumbed after being knocked about by the hawk.

I have myself in recent years seen even a peregrine stoop at a brown hare and knock her head over heels as though shot, while on three or four different occasions the blue hare has been fairly killed by the trained peregrine, just as the brown hare has been taken by the gerfalcon. An account of these remarkable flights will be found in that volume of the 'Badminton' series which relates to Falconry.

The flight with the goshawk is another affair. It is the nature of these short-winged hawks to seize their prey upon the ground, by one swift dash out of a tree, or, in the case of trained birds, from off the fist of