Vol. Ill, No. 3.] Note on the Saher or Oherriig Falcon. 189 



its eyes are seeled and liastilj drop it^ and canuot be deceived a 

 second time. 



In the Punjab fclie saker is flown fit hare, lioiibara and kite. 

 It used also to be trained to the common crane, and in Persia it 

 was, according to the Baz-Nnma-yi Nasin^ flown at this quarry 

 till recently, I have flown it successfully at short-eared owls 

 and have also taken with it a few Indinn giass-owls, a niucli more 

 difficult quarry. T believe that any first-class saker in veiy high 

 condition, z.e., weighing 2 lbs, 5 oz. or more, chu be flown success- 

 fully at this quarry, but I have not cared to risk a first-class bird 

 at this flight during the spring on the return-migration. The saker 

 will also, it is said, take black ibis {Geronticus papzUosus) well, I 

 have flown it with success at night-heron, purple-, and common 

 heron. In Baghdad it is said to be flown at geese. Corballis in 

 ''Fifty-five Years of Spoi't," writing apparently of Syria, says: 

 *' This falcon is good at smaller game, such as grouse, partridges, 

 etc." The saker, however, is essentially a falcon for large quarry : 

 it is far too slow for sand-grouse in ordinary circumstances. 



H.H. the late Mir Ali Murad used to train passage-sakers. 

 to * ravine deer,' as is still done in some pai'ts of Arabia and 

 Persia. The late Sir Harry Lumsden, who raised the^ 

 Guides, told the writer that the Amir of Kabul used to send him 

 in the cold weather two Turkistani falconers with ' eyess* sakers ^ 

 and Afghan greyhounds, all trained for this flight. He also had a 

 passage-saker trained by these falconei'S. The greyhounds wex'e 

 first taught to wait on the hawk, by being slipped with a hawk at 

 hares in a moderately close country where the hounds continually 

 lost sight of the hare. The greyhounds were leashed in the follow- 

 ing manner; — The mounted falconer wore a leather belt, to one side 

 of which a long leather strap was sewn. At tho far end of the strap 

 was a slit to admit the fore part of the rider's foot. The end of 

 the strap being passed thi*ough a ring in the greyhound's collar, the 

 falconer inserted his toe in the slit, and then jdaced his foot in the 

 stirrup. To slip the eager and straining greyhound, the rider had 

 merely to withdraw his foot fi-om the stirrup and the greyhound 

 was off. With a greyhound, leashed in this manner, a falconer <ran 

 ride at a smart canter. 



At houbara, many haggards, in a stern chase, " fly cunning, " 



that is, instead of putting on the speed, flying direct, and tai-ning 

 the quarry, they somewhat leisurely slant upwards to obtain an 

 extensive view, well knowing that an houbara so commanded will 

 soon settle. When the houbara takes refuge, the distant hawk, high 

 in the air and sharply outlined against the sky, begins to slant to- 

 wards the earth, but sti-ain the eye as you may to mark the iipot where 

 she touches earth, the dark background of the far hills supervenes 

 and you see no more. Lucky is the falconer that finds her half 

 an hour later seated gox'ged amongst a heap of feathers and two or 

 three bones. Can she have devoured a whole cock houbara, bones 



1 It has mistakenly been sfcjited in the Badminton Magazine tliufc Sir 

 Harry Lnmeden used peregrines for this flight. 



