-y} Jtmninl of the Asiatic Society of B&igal. [January, 1907. 



« > 



4 



Biddulph told me that he once put up a Rock Horned-Owl 

 [B7th» ben a^ensi^ , which was then chased and buffeted by a 

 pair of wild la- ar : he galloped after it, and after two or three 

 flights secured it with the aid of the Lngnr.s 



When trained this falcon is persevering and plucky, but though 

 it also * waits on * well, it dofS not ' ring up ' well. The ' haggard ' 

 {tarinfik) and the young immature bird {chvz) are both trained, 

 never the * yess. The best birds are, I think, 'haggaids' of 

 one moult, or young biids caught not earlier than the end of 

 November. When ' aigrette" feathers were the rage, many bii^- 

 catchers in the Kapurthala State and elsewhere (JW/vcAAfv. Jhivorsj 

 and Musf'lli^j and certain other castes) kept lagir^ during the 

 rains, and flew them at Paddy -Birds,* The special quaiTy of 

 this falcon when trained is Paddy- Birds, Common Crows, Night- 

 Herons, and hares. When flown at hares, natives cast off more than 

 one falcon, and slip a dog or two as welL A female la<jar will 

 sometimes, however, take a hare single-handed by biu'ting' to 

 its head. The lagar has been trained to take the Houbara Bus- 

 tard, but it seems too slow for this flight: it can only kill on 

 the ground. In the Kapurthala State, it U sail to have been 

 trained to take the Large White V 



both birds are easy quarry, especially the Liter. Lieut.-Tolonei 

 S. Biddulph had a 'tiercel' that used to take teal. An old 

 Nawab of Hyderabad, Deccau, tellis me he has trained it to take 

 the Common Heron.* H.H. the late Mir 'Ali Murad of Sindh 

 used, at one time, to tram it to *' ravine deer," but, I fancy, with 



indifferent success. 



The la gar is local in its habits. Tt remains paired throughout 

 the year, and hunts in pairs. Lieut. Colonel E. Delme Radcliffe 

 in his pamphlet on Ealc<'nry states that it *' does not assume its per- 

 fect adulr, plumage till the third year." Year after year a pair may 

 be obseived hunting in the same spot. If the pair kill some large 

 quarry, snch as a pigeon, they feed on it together; but if the 

 quarry is a small bird, ouehawk bears it off. It is an early breeder. 

 According to Captain G. F. L. Marshall (^' Bird Nesting in 

 India") the nest is to be found in Upper India throughout the 

 month of January. At Zam, near Tonk, in the Derajat, I found 

 on the 1 7th of March a nest with four egg:s in a ti-ee, the young birds 

 just issuing out of two of the eggs. In 1905 a paii- nested in the trees 

 near the church in Wellesley Square, Calcutta, and I frequently 



'6 



Falcons do not upoally take a bnre by flying ^trajgl^t at it and seizing it 

 like a proshawk; they stoop at it repeatedly and knock it abont till it is 

 exhausted 



i With tV)e exception of the Eed-hended Merlin f/«.-./r>,f?, nnd the ^luk- 

 ra. thH lurif IS tW^ only hawk th^t c^n be flown during the .ains. Moultin^j 

 peresrnn^s nre flown at Paady-Hird^ in 8..nie districrs, just to keep them in 

 exerciR**. No hawk can h^ flown in th« hot weather proper. 



8 Notu I e'-pect. ''on the pnssape." 



8 The Ameer of Hurt o 's - Falconry in fh^ Volley of th. Indus " He was 



H keen ^ ^^^iO er ^;^<l k.pt np a large old-fashioned establishment of hawks 

 for every kind of flight. 



