390 Journal of the Astatic Society of Bengal. [May, 1907, 



Jerdon and Blanford state that F. peregnnoto^' is the falcon 

 most highly prized by Indian falconers. This, however, is quite 

 a mistake, for, no practical falconer could or does place the shahin 

 in the same rank as the peregrine. Many Easterns do indeed 

 prefer the saker to the peregrine, hut none the shahin. 



Though in India the term shahin is restricted to the two 

 species or races mentioned, yet in Persia and elsewhere it includes 

 the peregrine. Arab falconers in the Persian Gulf call the 

 female peregrine shahina and more rarely hahriya ; and an Arabic 

 MS. on Falconry says, "If you want to keep shahins^ keep those 

 of the peregrine (hahrt) kind,'* The author ^ of the Bdz-Nama- 

 yi Ndsiri says : " The shahin is very widely distributed. It is 

 divided into three varieties — the dark, the light, and the yellow. 

 The best are procured from three districts — from Vrum in Otto- 

 man territory, from Ardahil in Persia, and from the hills of 

 Shammar in Arabia on the road to the holy city of Mecca. The 

 Urnm shahin is particularly common in SivHsJ* Happening to 

 be in Sivas one spring, he called on the Governor, who supplied 

 a guide to conduct him to a shahin's eyrie in a hill-side a few 

 miles from the city. He continues : ** I sat down to observe it. 

 My patience was soon rewarded by the appearance of the parent 

 birds bringing food for their young, I observed the birds nar- 

 rowly, and discovered that they were not shahins but peregrines. 

 I am of opinion that when the nestling is taken it is a shahin^ but 

 that when caught in a net the same bird is a peregrine. What is 

 more, on another occasion in Sivas I met a falconer with a pere- 

 grine on his fist, * What is this, ' I asked, 'and what does it 

 catch ? ' He replied, ' This is a shahin that I myself took from 

 the nest and trained it * * * *. " 



Old Persian writers, too, have extolled the shahin in prose 

 and verse. They describe how this swift-winged, sharp-taloned 

 falcon, in stooping to earth is swifter than the rays of the sun, 

 and in mounting to heaven is quicker than the sight of man's 

 eye. It nests, they say, on the crest of a mountain so lofty, that 

 the celestial eagle cannot wing its way thither, whilst the constel- 

 lation Aquila, in terror of its talons, crouches close in the green 

 nest of the sky. 



The popular Indian notion of the '* shahin " is gathered 

 from Persian writers, with the natural result that this exceed- 

 ingly beautiful and well-made falcon has obtained a reputation 

 for nobility that it by no means deserves. Why, its very name 

 means Royal. According to one legend, no less a person than 

 King Jamshed named it so. According to another, two falconers, 

 once observing this falcon for the first time, saw it strike down 

 a partridge. Suddenly an eagle appeared and robbed the falcon. 

 Said one, "Surely the eagle is the king of birds?" As he 



1 The Persian word shahin has been adopted uito Arabic and given a 

 broken plaral shawahAn. 



a The TaimuT Mirza raeutioned in Blanford's •* Eastern Persia,** Vol, II, 

 page 103. 



