6o, Note on Indian Hawk-bells* 



By LiEUT.-CoLONEL D. C. Phillott, Secretary, Board of Examiners. 



Indian hawk-bells, light and sonorous, are justly valued even in 

 Europe. Their manufacture is now confined to two villages in the 

 Punjab, the village of Kallar in the Rawal Pindi district being the 

 more famed of the two. The method of manufacture, or rather 

 the method of tempering, is a trade secret, jealously guarded. It 

 is said that the bells are not cast, but moulded in two separate 

 pieces with a hammer, on an iron mould. The two pieces are then 

 joined, the ring being affixed last of all. Indian falconers call 

 hawk-bells zU and zang. The weight of the largest size, that for a 

 goshawk, is 9" 5 grammes, and that of the size usually worn by 



peregrines, 73 grammes ; a smaller size is 5*2 grammes. The 

 average price is eight annas a pair. A bell rarely preserves its 

 tone a whole season, but occasionally an extra-good bell is found 

 that will last two seasons or even more. Indian falconers cleanse 

 bells that have lost their tone with hot wood-ashes, but if this 

 restores the tone, it does so only partially. 



The BoTce of St. Albansy treating of bells, tells us to, " Looke 

 also that thay be sonowre and Well sowndyng and shril and not 

 both of oon sowne : but that oon be a semytoyn under a noder." 

 Some such pt'actice was cun^ent amongst Indian falconers too, who 

 considered that hawk-bells should not both be of ' oon sowne/ but 

 nar u mada^ "male and female." 



Major F. T, C. Hughes, Deputy Assay Master, Calcutta Mint, 

 has kindly analysed one of the Kallar-made bells and reports that 

 it contains : — 



Copper 



Zinc 



••♦ 



610 p.c. 



38-0 ,. 



Impurities (principally lead with traces of tin 



and iron) 



*•• 



)5 



