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ALGERIA FROM WITHIN

kept as long as they can fly, these hawks of North Africa are caught in the autumn and are released again in the spring as soon as the molting season begins. What is still more curious is that the same birds are found again the following year by the falconers, with their young, to be trained for the first time. A hawk is an expensive luxury, and costs four or five hundred francs to buy, while a falconer must be mounted, clothed, fed, and paid a salary. But it is a noble sport, and perhaps one of the most picturesque in the world.

A meeting-place is fixed, and the party rides out in twos and threes, or, in the case of the rich, send on their horses, and motor there in comfort. When every one is assembled a long line is made, converging at the two extremities so as almost to make three sides of a square; the falconers, with the birds, capped, perch- ing on their turbans or shoulders, ride in the center. The horsemen slowly advance. Suddenly there is a shout a hare has got up; the line steadies its pace, for it is against all rules in any way to hunt the hare until the falcon has got to work. This does not take long, however, for in a second a bird is uncapped and is soaring rapidly up into the air, a second bird has followed it, perhaps a third. Up they go, flying swiftly above the hunted beast. Suddenly the first falcon swoops down toward the earth, then up again. He has missed, but before the hare has got over this first escape the second falcon comes down; if he misses, the third is there; and, with cries of delight, the Arabs ride up to see the prey held firmly in the falcon's talons as he pecks savagely at the head. All this may take five minutes or half an hour. If the hare gets a good start or if the falcon does not see it, at once there is gallop across country, driving the

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