198 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



The last Rajah of Oude had a pack of hunting-panthers 

 (" cheetahs"), that often took the field of their own 

 accord, and used to deliver at least a portion of their 

 prey, even if the expedition had not been successful 

 enough to satisfy their own hunger. Nearly every 

 Mexican cazique kept a trained eagle, whose value, ac- 

 cording to Devega's chronicle, was often estimated at a 

 sum representing the price of ten slaves. 



That eagles can be utilized as well as falcons is proved 

 by the experiments of the Forster Althofer, the overseer 

 of an imperial game-preserve near Judenburg in Styria. 

 He has trained both the Lammergeyer and the Steinadler 

 (golden eagle) of the Styrian Alps, but prefers the latter, 

 and estimates that his pet ger-eagle saves him each year 

 from twenty to thirty florins' worth of powder and shot. 

 It is strange that the " gentle art of falconry" has gone 

 so utterly out of fashion : on our Western prairies and 

 in the water-fowl headquarters of Southern Florida it 

 would be rare sport to slip a winged retriever, and, if the 

 rush of our business life should leave us no time to do 

 the training ourselves, we could get ready-drilled birds 

 from Western China, where every landed proprietor 

 keeps a pair or two. 



But not only pretty or useful creatures find protectors ; 

 Vishnu has other pensioners on his list : 



For ugly things 

 He findeth friends and food. 



