A Morning with the Mehtars Falcons 1 39 



The total was fifteen chakor and a mallard. 

 The latter misguided bird was flying down the 

 river, and fell an easy prey to one of the Mehtar's 

 goshawks. 



Though a few duck are found about Chitral in 

 the winter, the regular duck-hawking season does 

 not begin till March, when wild-fowl are travelling 

 northward to the Central Asian lakes after 

 spending the winter on the jhils and tanks of 

 India, where the good living they have been 

 enjoying has put them in first-class condition. 

 The modus operandi, which, it must be con- 

 fessed, savours somewhat of poaching, is as 

 follows. After a settling of wild-duck has been 

 marked, usually in some sandy bay of the river 

 or a flooded rice-field, the hawking party stalk 

 them in line. In the middle are the falconers, 

 two or more in number, and at either end of 

 the line is a man with a copper kettle-drum, 

 generally bound with red velvet. On arriving 

 as close as possible to the duck without being 

 seen, the drummers commence a tremendous 

 dinning, and the hawks, thrown off at the 

 same instant, are in and among the duck while 

 they are rising off the water. In this way often 

 as many duck are bagged as there are hawks. 

 The rationale of the method is simple : if the 

 hawks are thrown off before the duck rise, the 



