Moulting
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 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 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 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 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 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 specimens of fashionable
prescriptions may be worth quoting for just what they are worth: "When
ye meane to further the mewing of your hawke, take of the snayles that
have shelles, stampe them shelles and all, strayning them through a
cloth, and with the oyle that comes thereof wash hir meate two or three
tymes. Also take of the snayles that lie in running streames, give
your hawke of them in the morning; for that will both scowre hir and
nourish hir greatly, and setteth hir up and maketh hir to mew apace.
Master Michelin, in his _Book of the King of Cyprus_, sayeth thus: 'Cut
an adder in two parts and seeth him in water, and with that water and
wheate togither fede your pullets, pigeons, turtles, and other birds
which you intend to allow your hawkes that are slack to mewe, and soone
after they shall mewe their feathers apace.'"
The personal attention paid to a moulting hawk varies very widely. Some
falconers make frequent visits to the room, and habituate the captive
to come to the fist, and be carried and handled and maintained in a
very tame state. The ancient falconers--and some of our own time--gave
themselves very little trouble, and left the moulting hawks pretty
much to their own devices. Probably the one course has nearly as much
to commend it as the other. It seems more amiable and business-like
to keep up, even during the off-season, that friendly intercourse
with your hawk which is natural among friends, and even some of those
habits of obedience which you have so laboriously taught. On the other
hand, while you are giving your hawk a holiday, you may almost as
well give her a real one as do it by halves. She will very possibly
moult a little quicker, perhaps a little better, if she has no worry
at all, and can concentrate her whole energies upon the mere growing
of feathers, just as she did when in the nest, instead of having to
bother herself about jumping to the fist--a mere perfunctory act of
meaningless duty, devoid of practical use or result.
The falconer will, at least once a day, visit the moulting-room, if it
is only for the purpose of changing the bath water, clearing away the
castings and the stray feathers of birds that have been plucked and
eaten, and gathering up any feathers which may have been dropped by
the hawk herself. The order in which these feathers fall is admirably
arranged, so that each new feather as it successively appears in the
place of one that has dropped out finds itself between two completely
grown feathers, either old or new, one on each side, between which it
can grow down with a protector right and left of it. The deck feathers,
_i.e._ the central feathers of the tail, are the first to drop, and
in the wings the "beam" or longest feathers are about the latest to
fall. By this time the smaller feathers of the body and other parts
will have mostly been changed. By rights, of course, the change should
be universal and complete, but in peregrines and lanners it is often
not so. Very commonly one of the former may be seen with several brown
feathers interspersed among the light grey plumage of the first moult.
A falconer must be rather over-fastidious if he is put out at this;
but there is more reason for complaint when rusty-looking primaries,
well worn in the nestling stage of existence, persist in keeping
their places amongst the brand-new shafts and webs of flight feathers
just come down. A blue hawk thus parti-coloured, looks as if there
was something wrong with her; and the owner is apt to fancy, whether
rightly or wrongly I cannot say, that the old feathers abnormally left
in are not as serviceable as new ones would have been. At anyrate, most
falconers consider it rather a feather in their cap to have their hawks
"clean moulted," that is to say, with a complete suit of new feathers
on their bodies.
Occasionally it happens that without any apparent reason an eyess
drops out some of her nestling feathers almost as soon as they have
come fully down, or, as the old falconers termed it, as soon as she is
"summed." I have known a jack-merlin, well hacked and fully trained,
and in first-rate condition, drop his two deck feathers while sitting
quietly on the pole-cadge on the way to be flown in the field, and have
seen him just afterwards fly as well as ever, and give a good account
of a ringing lark. When any such little mishap occurs the hawk must
of course be kept as high fed and fat as he can be consistently with
proper obedience. The jack I speak of found himself, in consequence
of his misfortune, promoted to a position of special favour among
his fellows. An extra allowance of the best sort of food was daily
permitted to him. When he flew well--which, by the way, he always
did--he had nearly as much as he liked to eat. And when by reason of
this very high feeding he refused to come to the dead lure, a lark was
generally walked up by beaters driving towards him as he sat on a rick,
so that he might be indulged with the flight for which his vain little
soul was longing. Or, if this could not be done, he was left on his
self-chosen perch until one of the other hawks went up after a ringing
lark, when he would come up like a meteor across the sky, and join in,
sometimes to the great chagrin of the other hawk, which had started
under the impression that she was to have the field to herself. In due
course the new feathers grew down, having the pretty blue-grey hue of
the adult plumage, and thus contrasting conspicuously with the five
brown feathers on either side of them. Before the lark season was over
they were fully down; and my lord was quite a curiosity, looking rather
as if some waggish under-falconer had imped the two middle feathers of
his tail with a couple of wood-pigeon's feathers instead of the proper
ones.
A hawk which has once been moulted in captivity is said to be
"intermewed." When the moulting hawk, which has been mewed in the
old-fashioned way to get through the process, is "summed" with her
new suit, the falconer must not suppose that the troubles of the
ordeal are over. Before the newly bedizened beauty can be flown again
with any success she must be got into condition, and, if suffered
to get wild during her long incarceration, she must undergo a fresh
ordeal of reclamation. The old falconers give elaborate directions
for conditioning a hawk when "drawn" from the mews. It would be more
tedious than profitable to reproduce their prescriptions, most of which
recommend nostrums too fanciful for this matter-of-fact age. Almost
as well might a modern trainer be advised to get his man fit by means
of the terrific potions and purges upon which Caunt and Belcher were
brought into condition. In these days we are partly too timid, and
partly, I suspect, also too lazy, to compound together some score of
ingredients, more or less poisonous or distasteful, and administer the
product to an unwilling patient in the rather sanguine expectation
that it will cure and not kill. A simpler treatment is preferred for
producing a result which is, after all, simple enough. The problem
is to get rid of that accumulation of fat which, in a time of almost
complete inactivity and overfeeding, has encumbered the heart and liver
and other internal organs of the hawk, and until it is removed will
make her dull, sluggish, and unmanageable. This should certainly be
done by medicine of some kind; and the sooner it is done, after the
flight feathers are fully down, the better. Any attempt to reduce the
superfluous fat, or to produce an appetite by means of mere hunger,
would be a great mistake. The hawk would lose in strength and weight
much more than she gained in condition; and it would be a long time
before, by dieting alone, you could get rid of the mischief which a
couple of doses would almost put an end to immediately. A simple purge
and a simple emetic should be administered in any case; and if the hawk
is of a vivacious disposition, and has not grown dull in the mews, this
may be found a sufficient physicking. For the former nothing seems to
be better than rhubarb. A convenient mode of dosing a peregrine is in
the form of a Cockle's pill, which may either be wrapped up in tissue
paper and pushed down the throat with a small stick, or concealed in a
tough morsel of meat which the hawk swallows bodily. A merlin or female
sparrow-hawk should not have more than half one of these pills for a
dose; and a jack or musket even less than this. Goshawks may have more
than the small hawks, but not so much as a peregrine. For those who
want a more orthodox and time-honoured prescription, the following may
serve:--"Take Aloes Cicotrine and graines of Filander, otherwise called
Stavesaker, and Cassia Fistula, as much of the one as of the other, to
the mountenance of a beane, togither, and when ye have beaten it into
powder put it into a henne's gut of an inch long, tied fast at both
ends: then convey it into hir in the morning, so as she may put it
over, and that must be after shee hath cast, if she had any casting at
al. Then set your hawke by the fire or in the sunne, and feede hir with
a quicke chicken, or some other live warme meate two houres after."
Even in those days, however, it is plain that there were some misguided
heretics who rebelled against the long-winded precepts of the esoteric
school of hawk-doctors. "Neverthelesse, in stead of the sayd aloes, ye
may at youre discretion use common pilles, such as Potecaries give men
to make them loose-bodyed. And many are of opinion that they be much
better than that other of aloes: for the pilles drive downward and
scowre more strongly and with greater effect."
It was an almost invariable rule with the old falconers to give washed
meat to a hawk after the moult. Many of them, indeed, began to do
so for about ten or fifteen days before the end of the moult; and
in the case of hawks which are now intended to be flown as soon as
possible, some preliminary steps of the kind should be taken while
the last feathers are growing fully down. Washed meat is better than
short rations in such a case as this, where if you reduce the hawk's
strength a little it is no great matter as long as she does not get
thin withal. But the grand desideratum for a newly-moulted hawk is
plenty of carrying. The effect of this discipline upon a wild-caught
hawk has been already described; it is quite as magical, and still more
speedy in its results in the case of one which has become wild in the
mews. This is one of the good things of which one cannot have too much.
It is more than one man's work to carry a single hawk as much as she
ought to be carried when fresh from the moult. If, therefore, there is
not a man available for each, let the one which is not being carried
be pegged down at her block if it is fine, or confined to the perch if
it is not, and provided with a tiring until there is someone who can
take her again on his fist. Tirings must be kept going assiduously for
the sake of the exercise, and for the first few days all food that is
not tirings should be given on the fist. In short, the trainer must go
through, with a moulted hawk, most of the same processes, more or less
modified according to the character of the hawk, as he went through
when first reclaiming and making her to the lure.
Long-winged hawks are, of course, less troublesome to reduce to orderly
habits after the moult than sparrow-hawks or goshawks. But then they
require longer to get into wind. For this purpose they must be called
off to longer and longer distances, and made to stoop hard at the lure.
At first their flight will be very heavy, and their desire to mount
nonexistent. After a minute's stooping at the lure they will have their
mouths open. It will perhaps be quite difficult to keep them on the
wing. But they must not be excused; and the much-enduring trainer must
have the patience to wait, swinging the lure until it pleases my lady
to come to it, and be keen in the cause. It is altogether impossible
to say how long it will be from the time when she is taken out of
the moulting-room to the day when she can take the field once more.
A haggard, dosed successfully, and dieted with lucky precision, may
surprise you by getting fit quite quickly, whereas an eyess which you
expected to bring into fettle in a few days may prove more restive
than she did when taken up from hack. There is luck as well as skill
in the treatment of each hawk. But carrying is the _sine quâ non_; and
the more a man carries his hawk the better chance he has of observing
how his treatment works, and whether it should be modified in one
way or another. The best hawks, when well moulted, will often become
even better the next year; and there is no reason why a moderate or
even a poor hawk should not improve. Newly-moulted hawks should not
be brailed, nor allowed to be bareheaded in any place where they are
likely to bate. And of course great care will be taken for some little
time that they are not left in a damp or draughty place or in the rain.