188 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [March, 1907. 



as for stinking: meat it is almost certain death. Meat, even the 

 least bit tainted, will not only make a sakercast her 'gorge' bat 

 toIII so upset her digestion that she will cast any meat that is 

 piven her for some hours afterwards. If starved and very lightly 

 fed, it is possible her life may be saved, but she will be so reduced 

 in flesh that she cannot be flown even at the lure. A careless 

 falconer of mine once gave tainted meat to a Tiewly caught young 

 ' passage-hawk' and left her. An hour later she was dead, choked 

 by the meat that she has unable to eject through the hood. The 

 taint of brass, too, will make sakers as well as other hawks cast 

 their gorge. Shy and crafty, sakers certainly are — or is it that 

 they are merely intelligent ? Be-xvafa, '^faithless," is an epithet 

 applied to them by natives, but I have had many birds that no 

 more merited this reproach than peregrines. As for tlie vice of 

 ' caiTyiiig,' sakers are fit only for large quarry, and are, by Eanterns, 

 never flown at anything else. I have flown sakers at jjrass- and 

 -short-eared owls, and stone-plover, —quarry that no Indian fal- 

 coner will willingly attempt, b.ut have never noticed this habit of 

 ' carrying.' The saker has been hastily and unjustly judged, if not 

 maligned, by English falconei^s generally.^ 



These falcons seem to possess high reasoning powers as well 

 as excellent memories. I once tried the experiment of moulting 

 some hawks, a shdhin and a saker, *'at the block," under a 

 spreading tree, tbe bawks being left out day and niglit. (Neither 

 dogs nor .jackals molested them^). I one day shot a dove in the 

 tree and gave it to the saker, Next day I shot a bird on the far 

 side of the bungalow out of sight of the liawks, but on coming 

 round the corner I saw the saker at the full extent of ber leash, 

 agitating her wings,^ her neck stretched out in eager anticipa- 

 tion. In one lesson she had learnt to associate a gun-shot with 

 food. 



Some old chargh^ are too cunning to be caugbt eitber by 

 means of a harak or by nooses (pa-dam). Should such a one have 

 taken up its quarters* in a particular spot, the bawk-catcber cir- 

 cumvents it in the following manner. He strolls past tbe resting- 



ah 



' seeled ' 



eyes. The rat, unable to see, runs hither and thither in search of 

 a hole, attracting the falcon's attention by its impotent movements. 

 It is of course easily taken. When two or tbree rats are taken in 



secur 



up with a live field-rat as a bait. Some char gh s^ however, are said 

 to be so cunning that on taking the first rat, tliey recognise tbat 



-*^-»4, 



^ The shdhin, on the other hand, owincr to its being confnsed with tbe 

 peregrine, has obtained a reputation it bj no means deserves. 



2 Cats will kill hooded hawks, and perhaps a hawk hanging from a perch. 

 I only once had a peregrine on a perch injnred by a half. mad pariah dog all 

 mange and teeth, 



3 Jn ancient falconry this action in young nestlings was called "cower- 

 ing.'' . . 



♦ Adel Hindus., adj. ; applied to any migratory bird that, having reached 

 its destination, has taken up its abode in a particular spot for the season. , 



