Tiercel

In this wise, the glossy bright-eyed kestrel, whom tiercels’ training could not reclaim, shook off silver bells, and velvet hood, and broidered jesses; and fled away—to consort, henceforward for evermore, with gleds, and hawks, and such birds of prey as make their nests deep in Bohemian forests, or in the desolate places of the Wilderness that girdles the frontier of the reputable world.

He is a tiercel, lean and long and supple-winged, the first of the year.