Bifd Catching In India. 121 



movements ere long attract one of the numerous birds of prey 

 which are nearly always flying overhead in open country in 

 India. The victim either fails to see or ignores the net, 

 stoops at the bait and becomes entangled if it happen to 

 approach from the side on which the net is erected. 



The third common method of capturing birds of prey 

 is by flying a lure bird. For this purpose the falconer 

 employs one of the more feeble of the raptores — probably 

 a White-eyed Buzzard. Some of the feathers of each wing 

 of the lure bird are tied together so that it can fly only with 

 considerable eftort, and when thrown up drops to the ground 

 exhausted after a flight of about three hundred yards. To the 

 feet of the lure bird is tied a bundle of feathers in which are 

 mingled a number of horse-hair nooses. Having been thus 

 made up the lure bird is thrown into the air. It flaps heavily 

 along. Seeing its laboured flight and the bundle of feathers 

 attached to its toes any bird of prey that happens to be 

 soaring in the vicinity thinks it is carrying some heavy booty 

 and promptly attacks it with the object of robbing it. The 

 result is usually that its feet get caught in the nooses and both 

 birds drop struggling to the ground, where they are seized 

 by the Falconer. 



It is scarcely necessary to state that game birds, are 

 those upon which bird-catchers mainly operate. 



In the I'nitcd Provinces the most usual method of 

 netting Quail is to place overnight some covered cages con- 

 taining call-birds near a dal or a sugar-cane field. The calls 

 of the captive birds attract to the field in question numbers 

 of wild Quail. Shortly before dawn a net is quietly stretched 

 across one end of the field, and the Quail in the field are 

 driven towards the net by drawing a rope lightly over the 

 top of the growing crop, beginning at th^ end of the field 

 opposite to the net and slowly moving the rope in the direc- 

 tion of the net. As the rope ncars the net a great noise is 

 made on all sides of the field exce|)t that across which the 

 net is stretched. This causes the alarmed Quail to rush 

 headlong into the net. A hiodification of the above method 



