Vol. Tir, No. 1.1 , Notes on tJie Lnaar Falcon 4.1 



[N.S.'] 



oLserved a pair, probably the same, in the MaidauJ Some layars 

 appear to be partially migratory. A native falconer and experi- 

 enced hawk-catcher, in n.y sevice, told me that he once in the 

 autumn came across some twenty or thirty layarn hawking grass- 

 hoppers Mn one place. My informant also told me that he had 

 in the plain of Gandi 'Umar Khan, about 25 miles from Dem 

 Ismail Khan and opposite the Takht-i Suhtymnn, caught as many 

 as eight l^ynr^ in one day, during the in-migration : he farther 

 stated that these migratory or **hill lagnrs"' arrive a little before 

 the saker falcons, but that one or two early sakers generally h:mg 

 on their wake, and live by robbing them. Other h^iwk-catchers 

 have told me that these "hill laijafs'^ are, on the in-migration 

 always single, never paired. 



lUanford writes : '^* * F, juyger is exactly intermediate in 

 structure, as it is in plumage, betueen the Peregrine group and 

 F. cherriuj.'' The Inyar is to the peregrine what the country- 

 bred horse is to the English thorough-bred. ^ In habits, however, 

 it is nearer the Saker; for, like it, it beare extremes of heat 

 and cold, has a coarse digestion, frequents sandy deserts, probably 

 seldom diinks, and seldom, if ever, bathes in water.^ Like the 

 Saker it too moults easily and quickly. To the touch, its flight- 

 feathers have a hard and dry feeling something liketho-e of theflight- 

 feathers of a kite : they have not the softness of a Saker's nor the 

 s pringiness of a Peregrine's, Unlike the Saker, the la<jar does not 

 dislike the flesh of Paddy Bixds. Possibly, too, it can be fed without 

 risk on the flesh of ducks and other water birds ; not so the chargh,. 

 Does it, during the moult, eat small stones ("rangle"), as do 

 peregrines and shahins ? I think not ; but as Avild lagars can be 

 caught at any time of the year and bought for perhaps as little 

 as two pence,* they are seldom kept dmnng the moult, hence infor- 

 mation on this point is scanty. 



Once when Houbara-hawking in the desert undei* the hills 

 neai^ Dera Ghazi Khan, I noticed a pair of wild luyars ' waiting on' 

 high up over some village children, who kept beating out a 

 small bird from the bushes. As the bird made a dash for the 

 shelter of the next bush, one of the layar? would make a deter- 

 niined stoop; but the bushes were too close to each other for the 

 hawk to be successful. Sometimes the bird got lost, w^hen the 

 htgars^ tired of * waiting on,' sailed away to some distance; but 



i I have hIso seen a large falcon near HowraVi Bridge, aad another roosting 

 in the Erien Gardens. They appeared to be Shahins or Peregriiif^s, hut it was 

 not light enonjrh for me to identify them. 



2 Gilbert White remarks that birds of prpy occaRionally feed on itiRpcts. 

 I once saw a pair of vultnres in the hills picking np flying nuts that were 

 issuinsr out of the ground. That all hawks ett locn^ts is a fact well known 

 to Indian falconers and hauk-catchers, but I Im^e never seen one hawking 

 gras^-hoppers. A bird-catcher tells me that if a shikra is loo conning to be 

 entic*^d by a quail or a fparrow, it can be caught in a hal-chhatrJ wiih a 

 lahdnfi (an insect like a mole cricket) a? a bait. 



S It probably takes dust b^iths. 



4 The first hawk the writer ever bought was a trained lanar that killed 



Paddy-Birds. It was bought for about Sis. 6d, 



