260 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. {May, 1908. 
Some haggards, at any rate, pair ane ‘leaving India. On 
the 4th April, 1896, a pair were seen to hawk and killa small bird 
in Jhelum. On the 18th, Lieut-Colonel s Biddulph caught a 
young falcon. On the 28th April, 1897, a young falcon was 
reported to me in Chhach as having been seen that day. Most of 
the issn an it was said, had passed over. There were then, 
— od many duck and quail about, and also an old heron or 
young ‘falcon,’ caught a day or two before, had yellow 
feet, and had renewed a few of the small feathers on the back, 
breast bs 
s caught on the return migration are styled by falcon- 
ers celeron : 
wild state, peregrines prey chiefly on duck, pigeons, 
quail, teatl birds, and Indian crows. Like many other hawks 
they will, in the dusk, kill bats ; but bat’s flesh is not palatable to 
hem ey wall also eat locusts? In t the locust year of 1891 
i 
None were cangh at Lakhi in the Bannu idhen 3 two only 
Whether hawks do or do not act as “ Nature’s Police” isa 
moot point. They do, however, when they have a choice, select 
the bird of weakest flight. This does not mean that they select 
the bird that is nearest to them, nor even the bird that is best 
placed for a stoop. If several houbara get up one after another, a 
hawk will waver, and perhaps change its objective more than 
once, It will forsake, greatly to the disgust of the falconer, a 
fine cock houbara that is quite close, a perhaps go after an 
unseen bird two or three hund a When such is the 
ease, it will always be found that the bird last selected is small or 
w eakly. e reverse never happens. This peculiarity is more 
marked in haggards than in young hawks. Wild birds, hunters 
Some young bri tried seem to injure the breast-bone when 
stooping, perhaps by grazing it along the ground. I had a 
trained bird that did so twice, on each occasion out of sight ; and I 
twice caught young birds that had been so injured, and “had a scab 
all along the breast-bone. The second bird was caught in a curi- 
us manner. Onthe 9th April it killed a crow in the Infantry 
lines at Dera Ghazi Khan and was deprived of its quarry by a 
sepoy. In half an hour or so it killed another crow in the lines, 
1 Adjective da Nau-roz, the Persian New Year’s Day, corresponding 
to ane =a a 
27T ter ae a haggard that ased to eat earthworms. 
3 Vide. Smet of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. III, No. 3, of 
1907, p. 186. 
