"186 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [March, 1907, 



saters have I ever seen that did check at the lure, both haggards : 

 one chased kites and the other crows. 



The flesh of water-birds is generally ohnoxious to cliar^^, 

 I have, however, frequently given a light meal of night-heron 

 and purple-heron without evil results, but on. two occasions I lost 

 valuable birds by giving a full feed of the flesh of the commoti 

 heron : the hawks cast their gorge and theii- stomachs were so 

 upset that they were unable to retain meat of any kind. After 

 killing a heron, a new chargk should be allowed to eat only a few 

 beakfuls and should then be fed up on pigeon or dove. I have, 

 too, seen a cliarffh cast her gorge after beins fed on wild-duck. 



Though sakers will eat the flesh of purple-herons, night- 

 herons, and even common herons, with avidity, they seem to really 

 dislike the flesh of paddy-birds. If fed on the flesh of a paddy- 

 bird they will probably altogether decline to fly at that quarry 

 again. 



Like all hawks, they have a natural antipathy to owls, and 

 some 'haggards' at least, extend this antipathy to harriers. I 

 have more than once lost a newly-trnined *haggaid,' which 

 followed up a harrier for tw^o or three miles, stooping at it with the 

 utmost persistence, till we, gradually outdistanced, were unable 

 to gallop further, and both birds disappeared from view. 



I have seen an *intermewed snker ' strike a full 

 grown hare on the head with such force that it never moved 

 again, I have also seen a young bird, weighing 2 lbs. 4oz., lift 

 a hare weighing 4| lbs. and fly with it close to the ground for a 

 distance of two or three hundred yards. On other occasions I 

 have seen hares canter away for fifty or sixty yards, bearing off a 

 saker that had * bound ' to their hind quarters. 



Like most birds of prey these hawks, too, feed largely on 

 locusts,^ and it is almost impossible to catch one when locusts are 

 about. Durintj the in -migration of 1891 an unusally large 

 number of young sakers was caught in the Peshawar, Pindi, 

 Jallandhar, Dera Ismail Khan, and Bannun Districts, and doubt- 

 less elsewhere. So many were caught that there was no market 



for them. Birds were brought from a distance of 50 miles 

 to D. T. Khan cantonment and sold to me for a rupee each. I 

 bought several and released them. During 1890-91 there was 

 a plague of locusts throughout the Punjab, and swai^ms of locusts 

 had been reported from Central Asia, Egypt and elsewhere. May 

 not this excessive number of young birds have been due to the 

 abundance of food provided for nestlings by these locusts ? 



Both young birds (* sore-hawks ') and hagpgards are trained. 

 The former are prefen'ed,but T am not at all sure that * haggards * 

 are not really better. They are certainly more easily entered to 

 heron. As sakers migrate out of the Punjab early, that is in 

 February, there is then a great danger of * haggards ' getting lost 

 if flown at mounting quarry such as kites and herons, or 

 indeed if flow^n at any quarry during the early part of the 



H * i ■ _ 



^ Gilbert White remarks tliat birds of pvey feed on iusecta. 



