CHLAMYDOTIS UNDULATA MACQUEENII 195 



It. is perhaps quite as often hawked as shot, though naturally one 

 does not expect to make as big bags in the former as in the latter 



way. 



Major Drake Brockman thus describes a day's Houbara-hawking 

 near Peshawar. 



Some of the pleasantest days I can remember having passed in 

 India were spent at Peshawar in the cold weather of 1893 and 1894. 

 " Apart from the excellent pack of hounds there and the good 

 sport we had, I think that even more pleasant days were those we 

 spent out hawking Houhara on the Jamrud Plain in the company of 

 Mr. Donald, Assistant Commissioner, and Colonel Aslam Khan, of 

 the Khyber Rifles. 



" The Jamrud Plain, a few miles out of Peshawar, is covered to 

 some extent with low sparse scrub-jungle and small boulders inter- 

 sected with numerous dry water-courses, mostly small, but some 

 of a considerable width. The road runs right through this plain, 

 and on either side the latter stretches away to the foot of the hills, 

 where far away — about ten miles distant— can be seen Fort Jamrud, 

 situated at the mouth of the famous Khyber Pass. 



After an early breakfast we would drive out in the keen morning 

 air to our rendezvous, some five miles or so out on the Jamrud 

 road, to which our ponies had already been sent on ahead to wait 

 for us. Here also Colonel Aslam Khan would generally wait for us, 

 together with a few men of the Khyber Eifles, to act as an armed 

 escort party, and also to be extended in line on either side of us so 

 that they might act as beaters. 



" Having mounted our ponies we would stril<e off across the Plain 

 in the direction of the IVTinitini Fort, the men with the falcons— 

 they were peregrines we usually used for this sport— on either side 

 of us, and the remaining Sepoys extended as I have said. 



" After going in this manner for perhaps the best part of a mile, 

 sometimes much less, up would get a Houhara, generally about 

 eighty yards or so in front of our line. Immediately he was spotted, 

 one of the falcons was unhooded and thrown off, and as soon as he 

 sighted the Houhara a grand race would begin. The peregrine, like 

 an arrow from the bow, would hurl itself in pursuit of its quarry, 

 and we would hasten after both, galloping for all we were worth, 

 and galloping across the boulder-strewn and broken plain was exciting 

 enough iu itself, though it was wonderful the way our little country- 

 bred ponies kept their feet and got over the ground. 



Ride, however, as hard and as recklessly as we could, the two 

 birds would leave us soon behind, although the Houhara, with the 

 steady beats of the wing, seemed to be going comparatively slowly. 



