The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-28 00:00:00

HAWK-CATCHING IN HOLLAND.

(From the Correspondent of The Field.)
THE HAGUE, Dec 19.
John Barr, the head falconer of the Champaigne Hawk-
ing Club, is just now in Holland, at the village of Valkens-
waard, on the fron'ier of the province of North Brabant,
where he is entering the haggards which have been
caught for the club by Mellen, the old falconer of the Leo,
who resides there. Robert Barr, Mr. Nowcome's falconer,
has also been there during the past month for the same
purpose ; and two members of the French Club, MM. Julio
Alfonsode Aldama and Pierre Pichot, have spent h week
at the same place, where I have had the good fortune of
accompanying them, and of being initiated in all the details
of wild hawk catching. Perhaps a short account of our
excursion w 11 be acceptable to the readers of The Field, as
it is interesting to ascertain what still remains in our days
of one cf the most favourite pastimes of our forefathers.
Valkenswaard ewes its origin entirely to falconry, as
even its name indicates—meaning, in Dutch, the place
whore hawks are kept. Schlegel, it is true, in his mag-
nificent work on hawking, speaking of that village, says
that in days of old (about the first half of the 17th. century)
the word was spelt Varkenswaard by some authors,
meaning a place where pigs aro kept; but, though these
quadrupeds are numerous enough on market days on the
large open space of the village, I should rather accept the
later but more poetical and sportsman-like spelling. In
fact, Valkenswaard is alive with remembrances of the
falconry of old ; the greater number of the inhabitants,
if not falconers themselves, have had some famous falconer
in their family, and the well-known names of Mellen,
Bots, Peels, Damns, Boom, &c., are still to be met with in
that picturesque little place.
Since the completion of the Eindhoven lino of railway,
access to Valkenswaard has been made easy enough, either
by Rottordem or Brussels, it being the frontier station
where the Dutch custom-house officers poke their inquisi-
tive noses into your trunks and carpet bag. The village is
at a short distance from the railway station, and is a charm-
ing little place. There are about twelve hundred inhabi-
taLts, who live in pretty little brick houses, neatly tiled or
thatched, having something of the appearance of English
cottages. Most of them have only a ground floor, and the
steep triangular roofs are in general higher than the walls
which support them. The shutters are painted bright
green, and the windows are set up with small panes of
glass. The most important part of the village is a long
triangular space, planted with linden trees ; at one end is
the town hall—a shabby sort of erection—facing which is
the Catholic Church, erected about six years ago. This
sort of forum is surrounded by pretty houses, some of
them very old ; one of the prettiest on the left is that
which belonged to Frank van den Heuvel, Louis XVl.'s
last falconer. Next to it is the Falcon Hotel, which is kept
by the widow of Bets, the old falconer of the Loo, and in
front is Van Best's celebrated cigar manufactory.
At nearly every street corner you see swaying to and
fro in the wind the signboard of some publichouse or hotel
which seems to prove that this was at one time a place of
great resort. Indeed, the old people still remember a time
when numerous falconers flocked there in the autumn, to
purchase the passage hawks caught by the professional
hawk catchers who lived there. The birds used then
to be sold by auction at the Three Swans, which sign you
find on the left, just after passing the house where Mellen
now lives. The hawks fetched a high price then, being
sometimes knocked down at more than one hundred florins.
Another curious signboard is that of the old house
still occupied by one of the Mellen family, and
which represents a heron deliberately stepping over
an owl, while a little bird flies away quite
shocked at the long-tilled bird's coolness. I understand
that there is some very capital Dutch joke in that
painting, but what it was I oonfess I could not well make
out. Last, but not least, I will mention the sign of the
Falcon—a hooded hawk, sitting on its grass bloc ; and
there we took up our lodgings for the week. Of the ac-
commodation I need say nothing specially, except that it
was much more comfortable than might be expected in
such an out-of-the-way place. The cookery was very good
indeed, and Madame Bots is a famous hand at fried eels
and fancy cakes; but the stoves which are used there are
most extraordinary apparatus, being nothing more than
an iron pipe breaking off into the chimney piece. Coals
are put in at the middle, and burn downwards till the
machine is red-hot, when the place becomes pretty com-
fortable ; but we had hard work sometimes to set these
economical pipes agoing.
Wolf's famous drawing of hawks, illustrating Schlegel's
Falconry, were hanging on the walls ; and in the chief
public room a few cases of stuffed birds, including two
gerfalcons from the Loo, completed the decorations of this
true falconer's rendezvous.
Shortly after our arrival we went over to Mollen's house
to see the newly caught hawks. Tho passage has been a
remarkably bad one this year, owing, I dare say, to the
western winds which have prevailed during all the
autumn, driving the birds of prey more to the east, to-
wards Prussia. Perhaps, too, the birds of prey were
desirous of presenting their compliments to their famous
colleague Herr von Bismarck. Be this as it may, after
nearly two months' tedious sitting in their lonely huts,
Mollen and his men have only succeeded in capturing five
falcons and two haggard tiercels, seven red falcons and
four red tiorcels, one male goshawk, and five merlins. We
found them all on their perches in the hawk-house—a
large room which Mellen fits up every year for the pur-
pose. Some of them are beautiful birds ; the 'laggards in
adult plumage are particularly so, and one old bird which
Barr designated " Old • Granny," whose age it would be
hard to guess, would have offered to a painter a perfect
model of the noble Peregrine. On a smaller perch and
curtains the merlins were placed. Two of them are old
moulted males, very elegant indeed, and getting remark-
ably tame with little Karl, Molten's youngest son, who
will grow up I hope to be a good falconer in time, as he
has taken a great liking for the noble pursuit. We called
one of our hawks " little Karl," after him.
The number of huts set out each season for catching the
passage hawks depends greatly on that of the hawks
ordered. But even a few huts can command, on those flat
plains, a very large extent of ground, and bring to the net
all the hawks which fly by, though much apart from each
other. Th:s year Molten had three huts out on the
heather; one close toValkenswaard, halfway between that
village and Heeze ; the other near Blois do Due, and the
third on the Belgian part of Brabant. This hut was mis-
chievously destroyed one night, the nets cut to pieces, and
the butcher birds and pigeons let loose. Happily the pas-
sage was then nearly at an end ; but, though it was quite
finished when we arrived in Holland, Mollen had kindly
kept tho nearest hut out to show us how the thing is
managed.
Of all the modes of catching wild hawks the Dutch sys-
tem is certainly the most curious. The hut is built out
in an open place on the heather, from which one can com-
mand a good view of all the environs. It is built up of
turf sods to the height of about five feet, and is large
enough to conceal one or two perscns. The roof is made
of an old cart wheel, which answers perfectly well, being
easily covered with turf. This ancient practice of using a
cart wheel is so much adhered to, that falconers are in the
habit of saying that hawks will not come if the traditional
wheel is dispensed with! This wheel may therefore be
called the talisman of falconry. The entrance to the hut
is generally made to open towards the east, as the wind
and rain do not usually come that way, and the door is
carefully covered up with turf. A long and narrow window
is made in the hut, just under the 'edge of the cart
wheel, and can be opened by taking off the sods on either
side of the hut according to the direction of the wind ; for
it would be very disagreeable to the falconer to have it
blowing directly into the little room where he keeps his
long and dreary watch. At twelve feet distance from the
hut, and just before the window, two mounds of earth and
sods are built 15 feet apart from each other; these mounds
are four feet high by two feet' broad 'on the top,
on which a flat turf sod forms a sort of platform. On this
platform a little bower of turf is neatly arranged, with its
opening towards the window of the hut, and three little
wands are bent in a semicircle mid stuck around it. This
is the butcher-bird's recess. The little captive is tied by a
sort of brace which encircles its body, and he perches on
the wands, being continually occupied with eating
chopped meat placed in a hollow stick, and all
the while keeping a careful look-out. Two poles,
about four or five yards in height, are next
raised up at about forty yards from the butcher-
bird's mounds, and about 20 yards apart from each other.
To the summit is tied a string which falls loosely down,
and goes into the hut where both ends are tinier com-
mand of the watcher. At the foot of one of these poles a
captive hawk is tied to the string by means of a swivel,
and a little lower down a rough bunch of feathers. By
pulling the string, the hawk and bunch of feathers are
hauled into the air; and then the hawk bates and shakes
the bunch of feathers. To the string of the second pole
is tied a live pigeon, who can seek for shelter under a
little hut made of turf. The use of this will be presently

explained.
The nets—three in number for large hawks, and one for
merlins or sparrow hawks—are eet at about 150 yards
from the hut. They are clap nets of fine thread, and
made to close by a wire which runs into the hut. At
30 feet behind each net is a little box made of turf, in
which is kept a live pigeon. The pigeon can be drawn
out of the box by means of a string which runs through
the middle of the net, and passes through the eye of an
iron pin stuck in the centre. The nets are placed north-
west, south, and south-east ; the merlin net is not so far
away from the hut, but only about 10 yards off. A little
live bird is tied in the centre to a sort of lever, which by
means of a string can be made to move.
Things being thus disposed, the falconer gets into his
hut early in the morning, and while he smokes his pipe he
keeps an attentive look out on the movements of the
butcher-birds. These no sooner see a hawk in the dis-
tance than they set up a shrill croak, and look up to the
sky in the direction in which the bird of prey is coming.
They become quite restless as he approaches, and lastly
pop into their bower for shelter, showing the greatest
signs of alarm. From time to time the falconer, by tighten-
ing the pole strings, sends the decoy pigeon flying into
the air, or by acting on the string to which the hawk is
attached, and thus displaying a sham fight between the
hawk and the bunch of feathers, which is supposed to be