Quote Originally Posted by Smeagol View Post

We haven't and have never had access to passage merlins and never will but I'd imagine the passage bird, if skillfully managed to retain at least some of its former horsepower, might fall between the two stalls but then like any other captive merlin it would be presented with a range of choices and management styles that didn't allow it to display anywhere near its potential.

Nick
Hi Nick,

that's simply not the case, and yet demand for passage merlins for lark hawking didn't exist.
At a time when passage peregrines were in great demand for out of the hood and waiting on flights, merlins, which were cheaply available from the same source, were being obtained as eyasses, and were normally hacked before being trained.
I believe there was good reason for that being so.

Tony.