Vol. Ill, JiTo. 5.] Kote on the Shahin Falcons. 391 



* 



tittered these words, fclie baffled and enraged shahin soai^ed aloft 

 and just as the eagle lowered its head to ' plume* its booty, the 

 falcon made a deadly stoop, and striking the eagle's neck severed 

 its head from its body. Unable to recover itself after the stoop, the 

 noble falcon struck the ground and was lifted by the falconers, 

 lifeless, from ont the mud. The other falconer rejoined, ^' Shah- 

 in-a,^ nay, the king is this^'' and hence this newly-discovered 

 species was named shahm. 



The shahins visit the plains of the Panjab in the cold 

 weather, generally not eailier than the middle of September. 

 Wheu, however, the air has been cooled by a thander-storm in 

 the hot weather, they pay occasional flying-visits to the plains 

 apparently in search of prey. I sometimes noticed odd birds in 

 Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan in July and August, 

 but they certainly stayed no longer than an hour or two. 



On a 13th of May I took a *' red shahin's " neat in the 

 Grumal Pass near Dera Ismail Khan. It contained two young 

 birds, male and female, able to fly two or three hundred yards. 

 On a 16th May at Kohat a nestling, a female, was brought to me 

 with the flight and tail-feathers three parts grown, while a few 

 days previously three nestlings had been brought and given to 

 Mr.D. Donald, Punjab Police. Marshall, in his ** Birds' Nesting in 

 India,'* records that the eggs of F. peregrinator were taken at 

 Raipur (C.P.) on a 25th January: of F. atnceps on 12th and 

 15th February at Jhelum and Etawah reapectively ; and on 10th 

 March at Kangra. 



At the end of November I caught a *' red shahin " in the 

 little hill-station of Parachinar under the Peiwar Kotal, and I 

 observed another there on the 6th February. It is probable, 

 therefore, that this species or variety extends into Afghanistan. 



Blanford in his Eastern Persia^ Vol. IT., writes : '* The falcon 

 described by Marco Polo as found in the mountains of Pariz near 

 Karmdn, can be no other than the Shahin. The old traveller 

 says: ' In the mountains of Karman are found the best falcons 

 in the world. They are inferior in size to the peregi'ine, red on 

 the breast, under the neck, and between the thighs ; their flight 

 is so swift that no bird can escape them.' Yule's Marco Polo, 



1, p. 86.'*, 



The present writer was for eighteen months in Kerman and 

 found there eyiies of three shahins ; all as far as could be ascer- 

 tained through field glasses, of the red species or variety. The 

 ** red ** species certainly occurs in British Baluchistan, and it 

 would be only natural to find it in Persia. The falcons of PHrlz 

 are, however, no longer famous. 



In a "wild state, in the Panjab, *'the red shahin*' preys 

 chiefly on doves, paroquets, mainas, partridges, teal, and 

 possibly duck, I have often on the N.-W, Frontier seen a shahin 

 fly close to the ground till directly underneath a flock of starlings. 



«.*ut»Li^H;^t cH«»^ 



