VII 



FALCONRY IN INDIA 



LEST the title of this chapter should lead the 

 reader to indulge in expectations that will 

 J not be realised, let me hasten to say that, 

 in my opinion, hawking is a much overrated 

 pastime. This statement will, of course, rouse the ire 

 of the keen falconer, who will tell me that hawking is 

 the sport of kings, and that it has no equal. To such a 

 defence of the sport the obvious reply is that it has 

 almost entirely died out in England, and that in India, 

 where there is every faciHty for it, very few Europeans 

 care to indulge in it. In Persia and India falconry 

 is carried on in precisely the same way as it used to be 

 in England. There can be little doubt that the sport 

 originated in the East, and was introduced into the 

 British Isles in Anglo-Saxon times. The hoods, the 

 jesses, the lures, the gauntlets that are used in India 

 to-day are exactly like those portrayed in old English 

 hawking prints. 



Hawks fall into two classes, according to the method 

 of catching their quarry. These may be compared 

 respectively to sprinters and long-distance men among 

 human athletes. They are known to falconers as the 



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