The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-06-08
THE REVIVAL OF
A ROYAL SPIRIT

FROSTVILLE, ATk.-Jlck Insley /
came to this part OF the country ten
years ago with a capital OF $4,000 and .
passion for field sports. He said tina. .
a man couldn't do anything with $1,000 .
! in New York. except buy TWO thea,er
( tickets and bottle OF wine: also that I
/ all the game worth fooling with had |
| been killed or run out of the State /
twenty years before. In Arkansas
$4,000 represented a big start in life. !
and there was all the game that even
a man of his liberal tastes wanted 70
snare or shoot He opened a little
country store at Ibis place and began
selling 10 the negroes. II goes with
out saying that any man who sells 10
negroes expects to realize profit OF
30 per cent The merchant is forced
to wait for mis- money until the cotton
crop has been gathered, and then he
runs the risk that his debtor will
J sneak it TO town and sell i. suisse
quently spending the proceeds on rum,
lightning rods. caSt-iron sewing ma
lchines, white pine pianos and anything
| else he may happen TO want and does
not need. So the prices in an Arkan-
] sas country store are high. lnsley
made an excellent living and even
saved some money. Best of all he had
plenty of time for shooting and fish
ing. He shot so much, in fact, that he
became tired of it. Long days with
J the woodcock, snipe or qua!ls failed to
interest him. He said that there was
no more fun in butchering fifty birds
in a day with a shotgun which turned
loose seven or eight hundred pellets
at them from each barrel Moreover,
it was unfair to the bird.
The only thing for a sportsman to
! do said Insley. lis to put himself as
4 nearly as possiblve on an equality with
! the game. Then. if ne captures il, he
! has something upon which he is at
! liberty 10 plume himself. This thing
. of taking a shotgun and a horse and
|, buggy and two highly ssnsitiZed dogs.
/ and putting them all in league against
4 one poor flyer that has nothing except
a pair of wings with which TO defend
itself is barbarous." So he gave his
!. $500 Greener 10 his brother and sold
his pointers to his friends and aban-
doned the chase for year. Then he
turned himself to falconry.
There are eighteen differing hav KS
, in southern Arkansas. and Ins!ay tried
them all. He began with the ordinary
chicken hawk, large gray bird which
\ has great certainty of vision and SwOop
n but lacks activity; is gluttOnous, and
\ will not work unless starved. He
Il found it TO be unkindly. almost I'M
|. tamable and. though he taught IL 10
return to hand at the whistle. he never
had any success with it. He practiced
| it at first on trapped blackbirds, re-
leasing one at time. 1t succeeded IN
catching one finally, flew TO the limb
of a dead tree, leisurely devoured its
prey. and. its appetite being tempo
rarily satisfied, spread its wings and
| sailed away, never to return. He had
no better success with the red-breast-
Z ed hawk. which is swifter but more
l untamable: or with the black hawk
which is too much like the eagle to be
of any service save as an ornament in
a mans front hall; or with the field
% hawk, which is smaller than the black
hawk but has an unconquerable long
ing for mice; or with the duck hawk
which pays attention to nothing save
, wild fowl; or with the rabbit hawk
a flyer of a pale brown hue. exceeding
l. ly active on the wing, and up TO al
the darts and twists that its quarry
may make, but savage and unintelli-
gent: or with the swooper, a medium
sized bird that is saffron under the
wings and black and white on ths
breast. and devotes itself to the eXter-
mlnation of small grass birds. He
even tried the sparrow hawk which
although of the true falcon build. fero.
city and instinct, is too small TO be Of
avail against anything worth having
InSley put in four years experiment.
y, ing with these various flyers. Some q
IL them are of the eagle variety. some
>. are more or less altered kestrels anC
u some are kites, but they all have {
defect. which makes them OF no avail
TO the falconer. He used 10 buy th'
Young birds from the negroes. WIZ
secured all the woods of Lafayette
county in search of nests. Many o
- the young died in cages. but he learn
ed in time how they should be kept
what proportion of liberty should b'
. allowed them and how TO make then
and keep them clean. He came TO be
reasonably expert falconer long befOr
he had a falcons
Then one day Eph Henderson. an OF,
negro who lives by fishing and trapping
offers. brought him two birds which n
said would catch quails If they had
p chance. They were not more than 81
!: weeks old and so undeveloped that
! was difficult to class them. As the
= grew older and their plumage cam
J, out it was seen that they belonged I
the variety known here as the blu
darter. Insley had seen them Occa
sionally. of course. in his rides thrOug
the fields. but he had never owned on'
for the reason that their nests ar
! built only in the widest. most undiS
!coverable places. The female hatChe
only two young n a sitting and sit
only once a year. and the bird is there
fore the rarest of all Southern hawks
The birds also are most difficult 10 al
nrnanh and 10 kill one nf thnn, l.