OCCASIONAL NOTES. 337 
the fierce Eastern sun in a flood of light. A moment later the hawk can 
be seen shooting downwards like a lightning flash on the Gazelle, buffeting 
its head and blinding its eyes with the rapid blows of its strong wings. 
Almost frantic with fear and fury the Gazelle soon frees itself from its 
feathered assailant by striking its head upon the ground, and then resumes 
its flight; but the relief is only momentary, for the pertinacious assailant 
as soon as shaken off renews the attack, coming down on the antelope’s 
head again and again, releasing it only long enough to avoid being crushed 
or impaled upon its sharp brow horns. Blinded at last and wearied by 
these attacks, confused by the cries of the approaching huntsmen, the 
terrified and exhausted Gazelle falls an easy prey to the Greyhounds and 
pursuing horsemen. Sometimes a young or badly-trained bird would fall a 
victim to his interference; for the efforts of the Gazelle to destroy, as well 
as to shake off, his tormentors, inspired by the instinct of self-preservation, 
are often as energetic as piteous to witness.” The reader is not told what 
species of hawk is thus employed, but it is evidently not the Goshawk, for 
it is described as “ eircling rapidly upward until almost lost to sight.” The 
flight is that of a falcon; and unless there be some poetic license in the 
description, which it is difficult to conceive if the author were really an 
eye-witness of the sport, it must be a falcon of some kind that is used, and 
a powerful one too. The Peregrine would scarcely be strong enough; it has 
nothing like the grip of the Goshawk, as I know from having carried both. 
The Icelander or the Jer-faleon would, in all probability, not be obtainable ; 
' the Lanner and the Barbary Falcon would be too small. What, then, is 
the species ?—J. E. Harrine. 
Waite Cuamois In SwitzeRLanp.—In the ‘ Alpenpost ’ (No. 2, 1878), 
is an interesting communication from Dr. Lorenz, of Loire, upon the 
subject of white chamois. At the opening of the shooting season in Sep- 
tember, 1877, a white chamois was shot in the valley of Safien, Canton of 
the Gresone. It was offered for sale to the cantonal museum for 500 frances 
(£20.) The directors of the museum refused to purchase it, and it was 
then sent to Zurich, where it was disposed of. Von Tschudi, in his 
important work on the “Alps,” mentions as a very rare occurrence the 
fact of a white chamois being killed in 1853 above Sculms, a small village 
on the Hezenberg, between Bonaduz and Versam, in the Grisons. It was 
an albino, whose hoofs even were white, and the iris rose-coloured. Its 
horns were a little more than an inch in length, and but slightly curved. 
The fur of this animal was very thick and close, particularly about the 
neck, which was handsomely shaped, the muscles well developed. A second 
example of this variety was killed in October, 1867, on the Quoentobel 
(Grisons). About thirty years ago a chamois-hunter of the Linthal shot a 
white chamois on the Sandalp, but no one was disposed to purchase, and it 
ax 
