148 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



bird, which is about the size of a pigeon, the inha- 

 bitants sometimes take large eagles. This hawk, in 

 former times, was taught to seize the eagle under 

 the pinion, and thus depriving him of the use of 

 one wing, both birds fell to the ground together; 

 but I am informed that the present mode is to 

 teach the hawk to fix on the back, between the 

 wings, which has the same effect, only that the bird 

 tumbling down more slowly, the falconer has more 

 time to come to his hawk's assistance. But in either 

 case, if he be not very expeditious, the falcon is in- 

 evitably destroyed. I never saw the shaheen fly 

 at eagles, that sport having been disused before my 

 time, but I have often seen him take herons and 

 storks. The hawk, when thrown off, flies for some 

 time in a horizontal line, not six feet from the ground, 

 then mounting perpendicularly, with astonishing swift- 

 ness, he seizes his prey under the wing, and both 

 together come tumbling to the ground. If the fal- 

 coner, however, be not expeditious, the game soon 

 disengages itself and escapes*." 



The common buzzard (Butco vulgaris, FLEMING), 

 which is certainly not the bravest of the rapacious 

 birds, and never, according to Montagu, pursues its 

 prey on the wing, has been known to exhibit no 

 little daring. One which M. Fontaine kept tame, 

 when hovering early in the morning over the skirts 

 of the forest of Belesme, dared to attack a fox, and 

 the keeper seeing him on the shoulders of the fox, 

 fired two shots at him : the fox was killed, and the 

 buzzard had his wing broken f. 



Even eagles are not always so courageous as 

 this, as appears from the following anecdote by M. 

 Vaillant. " I was once," he says, " witness to a 

 combat which took place in the environs of Paris, 



* Nat. Hist of Aleppo. 

 f Buifon, Oiseaux, Art. La, Buse. 



