786 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII. 



After my peregrines had gone through their training and 

 accounted for the houbara, which ray falconer had trapped and 

 loosed in front of them, as also for the heron, we decided to give 

 them a fair trial and see how they would acquit themselves when it 

 came to the real thing. I sent off both falconers, with the peregrines 

 and one luggar, in the afternoon to wait for me at a village, near 

 the houbara ground, and I started off myself at 4 a.m. the following 

 morning. On arrival my men gave me the good news that they had 

 seen the tracks of houbara all about the mustard fields and that there 

 must be at least four of them about. As soon as it was broad day- 

 light, we sallied forth, accompanied by a crowd of village urchins to 

 beat for us, and by the time the sun was well above the horizon we 

 had reached our hunting grounds and formed a long line with the 

 falconers at each end, I in the middle with the young peregrine 

 which was to be slipped first, and the boys filling up gaps in between, 

 extended to about 30 paces interval. For the first half hour or so we 

 had no luck, though we came across plenty of tracks, so knew the 

 birds were not far off, but suddenly fortune smiled on us and up got 

 two houbara some 50 yards ahead of us. I immediately unhooded 

 my bird and slipped her. One of the houbara dropped as soon as he 

 saw the falcon and ran into a bush, but the other one went off all he 

 knew. The falcon looked as though she was going to stick to the 

 flying bird, as she kept on its track, rising as she went, when all of a 

 sudden she closed her wings and dropped like a rocket straight into 

 the bush where the first houbara went. Shouting to the falconer on 

 my right to keep an eye on the still-fiying houbara, I galloped up 

 to the bush and there, to my delight, found the falcon with the 

 struo-fflinff houbara firm in her talons. The old falconer danced 

 round like a two-year old, with delight, saying, now the bird was 

 "made " and had become a tiger (sher ho gya), which, being inter- 

 preted, meant that she had been blooded and there was no fear of 

 her ever refusing an houbara when she saw one. 



We gave her a mouthful of flesh and some warm blood from the 

 throat, then hooded her and started afresh after the one which my 

 second falconer had marked down about half a mile further on, but 

 before we got there we put up four others. This time the haggard 

 was slipped, and away she went with quick sharp flaps, rising steadily 



