FALCONRY— THE CATCHING OF HAWKS AND FALCONS. 833 



pain inflicted on the liird, if done piopeiiy, but it might not be done properly 

 always, and in any caise the whole idea is barbarons and horrible and not to he 

 encouraged. 



As far as the actual training of the bird is concerned there are several good 

 books dealing with the whole subject, and each and every branch of it, and the 

 seeker after knowledge cannot do better than read up the chapters on Falconry, 

 in the Badminton Library, by the Honourable Gerald Lascelles or " Falconr/ 

 in the British Isles " by F. H. Salvin and William Brodrick, whom I will 

 not insult by attempting to emulate. 



Although I have done a good deal of falconry one way or another and 'tried 

 my hand at most birds from the Golden Eagle to the Hobby, I may here state 

 that I paid less attention to my birds from purely a falconry point of view than 

 I did from a naturalist's point of view, and was more interested in the bird itself 

 than in its training, and for that reason dabbled with all manner of useless 

 species, at least, useless to a falconer but interesting to me. 



All eagles are most imsatisfactory and extremely difficult to train chiefly 

 owing to the fact that they can go without food foi' long periods. 



The Spizaeti are the most easily tamed and trained, for they are not so bad in 

 the above respect as some of the others, but they are very slack hunters, lacking 

 in both courage and dash, for their size and strength. 



The Golden Eagle is wanting in neither courage nor dash, but unless brought 

 up from a youngster and accustomed to a couple of meals a day, there is no 

 knowing when he will oblige by being hungry enough to even trouble to come to 

 the lure. Moreover, caught when he is full grown, he is a dangerous bird to 

 play with. Taken from the nest he is easily tamed and comparatively easy to 

 train, but flying " at hack " does not suit him in the way of really teaching him 

 to stoop, turn, and twist, with the result that when trained, he is likely to be 

 extremely slow on the wing and not fit for much. I could never get an Indian 

 falconer to take charge of a Golden Eagle for me. Old Balinda who had taken 

 charge of as many as three Hodgson's Hawk Eagles for me at one time, and trained 

 them with some success, so far as they are capable of success, absolutely 

 refused to have anything to do with a Golden Eagle, the very first one I ever 

 caught. I tried hard to get a Pathan to take over one for me, but in vain. 



A Bonelli's Eagle I tried proved hopeless. Anjrthing running along the ground 

 he was good for, but once on the wing, he would take no further interest. He 

 was quite prepared to tackle every duck or barndoor fowl in the vicinity, but a 

 wild duck or a jungle cock had no atti'action for him whatsoever. 



The Booted Eagle is much more amenable to training than any of the other 

 eagles, and gets hungry Avitliin a reasonable time, that is, forty-eight hours will 

 make him ravenous and very " sharp," but he is no good for anything bigger 

 than hares, and is slow and clumsy in turning. 



All the true Eagles, excepting the" Golden, are not capable of catching anything 

 that flies, pro\aded it is not mained or sick, though they never fail to pursue a 

 hare when they get a chance, but how often one succeeds in catching even a 

 hare, it would be hard to say. I have only once seen one caught and that was 

 because the poor beast was simply set on from every side and had some three 

 kites and about four eagles of sorts after him. This was in the middle of the 

 Lahore race course early one morning. 



In concluding these papers on the Birds of Prey of the Punjab, I would like 

 to re-iterate once more the fact they have only been written with the intention 

 of making identi^cation simpler, and by placing them in types with one or more 

 common characteristics in each individual common to that type, and ignoring 

 details, I think, and venture to hope, vhat I have been successful. The descrip- 

 tions and keys, for the most part have been copied, either in full or in part, from 

 the " Fauna of British India," Volume III, or from Hume's ^' Pvough Notes." 

 The descriptions therein given cannot very well be unproved upon, and to 



