l82 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, [March, 1907, 



green^" In some hundreds of trained birds that I have handled 

 and examined, the bill has always been a blue slate coloiu', 

 light at the base, but deepening to almost black at the tip. The 

 legs, too, and the feet, and the skin round the ejes of the immature 

 bird are usually a distinct blue or slate-colour : only in a few of the 

 young birds is the colour greenish -yellow or yellowish-green. In 

 old birds, except in some moulted in confinement, the cere and 

 legs, etc, are orange. In the immature saker the colour of the 

 legs and cere is bluer than in the young peregrine. 



Compared with the peregrine the char gh has the tail longer in 

 proportion ; the head broader and rounder and not so snake-like, the 

 eyes perhaps larger but not so prominent, the beak and feet 

 smaller, but the toes thicker : the flight-feathers have a softer 

 shaft, and the plumage of the underparts is more fluffy, while even 

 the feathers of the back are not so tight and close and suitable for 

 resisting wet. In the female saker the number of large scales on 

 the middle toe is usually 14 or 15, while in a j:)eregrine it is 17 or 



18. 



Plate IV, reproduced from a photograph, shows the compara- 

 tive size of corresponding tail- and flight -featheis of a saker and a 

 peregiMne, fig. 1 being the flight-, and fig. 4 the tail-feather of a saker. 



The length of a few living females, large bixxis, measured by 

 the writer averaged twenty-two inches, while the wing averaged 

 seventeen. 



The weight of a mature female rarely exceeds 2 lbs. 8 oz. 

 Young birds caught at the end of Septembei* weigh two or three 

 ounces less, but put on weight dui'ing training. The heaviest 

 w^eight recorded by me is that of an exceptional bird that, when 

 in flying condition, weighed 2 lbs. 13| oz. Another laige bird, 

 after being set down to moult in February and fattened as much 

 as possible, weighed 3 lbs. \ oz., a weight that it would, I fancy, 

 never have attained in a wild state. Had the skin of this bird 

 found its way into a museum, it would probably have been 

 labelled Tnilvipes or hendersom. 



The next heaviest weight recorded by the writer is that of a 

 ' haggard ' or wild- moulted bird, which, caught at Lakki near Ban- 

 nun, reached Kohat on a 6th February and then weighed 2 lbs. 9-| oz. 

 On March 28th, killing houbara well, she weighed 2 lbs. 6| oz.,^ 

 too heavy a weight for spring. When calling her to the lure in 

 the morning, a clamourous flock of crane passed overhead and 



white nails. I had once an ' interinewed ' falcon that nnderwent, during the 

 monlt, some special treatment at the liands of the falconer, the resnit of which 

 ipras that the nails turned white and two dropped off. 



- 1 These weights, the result of long observation and practical experience, 

 are given as a guide to beginners. An experienced falconer can tell the 

 condition of a hawk that ia daily on his fist, merely bj feeling the breast and 

 more specially the flesh under the winys. All birds go up and down very 

 rapidly in weight. A female salcer will go np two ounces in one night in 

 the spring, if slightly overfed on houbara flesh the evening before. Hawks, 

 to fly and work well continuously, must be kept as nearly as jwssible at one 

 uniform weight. 



