3t)0 httlavs, Exlructs, }\utict's, S^c. 



aud in the femoral regions. Native boys amuse themselves 

 sometimes by shooting these birds on the cattle with arrows, 

 the points of which are passed through a piece of wood or 

 ivory for about half an inch, so that if the animal is struck 

 instead of the bird no harm is done. But the few thus 

 killed do not seem in any way to affect the numbers of 

 these pests." 



Decays in Chitral, India. — Col. Durand, in ' The Making 

 of a Frontier/ writes :—" We passed many Wild-Duck 

 decoys, at constructing which the Chitralis seem very clever. 

 They run off a portion of the stream on to a flat field, 

 making a pool twenty yards or so squai-e, at one corner of 

 which the water runs in. Here they place a wicker cage 

 with a wide mouth and tunnel gradually tapering up stream. 

 They stick decoy Ducks about the open water, and when the 

 Wild Ducks settle, drive them into the tunnel, catching 

 sometimes two or three hundred at a time." 



Falcon-catching in CJdtral. — Col. Durand, in the same 

 work, writes as follows : — " The method of catching is simple ; 

 a bird, according to the Chitralis, must be full-grown to be 

 of any use, and caught when ranging for food. The trapper 

 makes a little stone box in which he sits, a small hole being 

 left in the roof, on which a chicken tied by the leg moves 

 about, the string being in the man's hand below. After the 

 Hawk or Falcon has seized his victim, the string is gently 

 pulled, and, thinking that it is merely the chicken moving 

 in his struggles to escape, the bird grips all the harder and is 

 pulled to the hole, when the man below seizes it by the legs, 

 and its liberty is over. The Chitralis are wonderfully clever 

 at breaking their birds — I have seen one flown when captured 

 not fully a week — and trust for taming them to keeping 

 them awake. They keep a bird awake for three nights, 

 constantly talking to it, and finally, when it is tamed by 

 want of sleep and hunger, begin to feed it and to use the 

 lure." 



