Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/98

76 sufferers by the Bill rather than the excessive preservers, wliom we have mainly to thank for the anti-game-law agitation that is becoming chronic; since the latter usually keep too large a staff of keepers to give idle hulking youths the chance of doing much mischief when loafing about with a rusty gun "looking for vermin."

For the present I fear I must count the readers of 'The Zoologist' as some of the remaining enemies from whom I have, as a falconer, most to dread; but only, of course, as regards the destruction of the sources of supply on which a falconer depends. I need scarcely say that I believe a trained hawk, with bells and jesses, is sacred with any ornithologist who has the feelings of a gentleman, cela va sans dire; but I fear that few such will follow the rule which is a point of honour with most men who have kept hawks, never to fire at a wild hawk. If they only knew how much more pleasure is derivable from watching the habits of the living bird than is to be gained by contemplating its motionless distorted skin (I know of but one man in England, Mr. Hancock, who can stuff a hawk properly), I should not despair of their conversion.

Here is an instance of what I mean. I notice in the October number of 'The Zoologist' an account of a male Hobby having been shot near Banbury, in Oxfordshire. That Hobby was the father of a nest that had been protected by myself and others for years. The old birds used almost daily to join my Peregrines when flying at the lure, and have often played and circled round me within twenty yards. The result of that unlucky shot was that the nest came to nothing last season, and I fear will not be used again. I only trust that a Hobby's nest I know of in a certain eastern county may continue to escape a similar fate. Fortunately Hobbies, as a rule, fly so exceedingly high, often being only discernible by using a glass and following the upturned eye of a falcon,—an invaluable ally to a true naturalist,—that without a tame hawk to attract them down, it is rarely possible to murder these lovely birds. When in Central Florida, in 1870, I was much interested to notice how similar the flight of the Swallow-tailed Nauclerus, of which I saw scores, is to that of the Hobby, though even more beautiful. Like the Hobby, it appears to feed mainly on dragonflies.

Ornithologists will buy Peregrines' skins, notwithstanding the mischief occasioned by the demand for them. Last summer the