


Vol. IV, No. 5.] Note on the Peregrine Falcon. 261 
[N.8.] 
when a Pathan sepoy, stalking it round the corner of a building, 
cast a blanket over it. e bird was, with the exception of the 
scab on its breast, healthy and well, but rather thin 
et Bi return year after year to the same spot. In 1886 
ni 
City chasing tlie pigeons. Pigeon-fanciers said it had been their 
bane for years, and a big reward was offered for its capture. 
antes years later it was still in its old haunt. 
Another bird used to roost in a palm-tree at the edge of the 
Indus, near Dera Ghazi Khan. One year the bridge of boats 
started from this very tree, and a boat, its mast level with the 
mail Khan Cantonment not more than eight feet from the 
| Peregrines are unfortunately slow moulters. I twice 
caught fine healthy haggards at Christmas that were not clean 
moulted, their first flight-feather being only three parts grown. 
22 quoting John Barr, states hat he latter moulted a pere- 
grine in an exceedingly short space of time by feeding her on the 
heads, necks and pinions of fat ducks, and by keeping her under 
a small tented shelter upon which the sun beat down with force ; 
and that the feathers nourished by the fat were broader and 
stronger and grew faster than in any other instance. For the 
same reason Indians mix butter with a moulting hawk’s food, and 
in a short time hawks will learn to eat a big pat of butter, — 
I have more than once tried mixing the yolk of with a mo 
ing hawk’s food, but am of opinion that the egg makes the feather 
dry and brittle. 
T 
lo 
weighed, it will be found, that whether the bird be large or 
medium-sized, her weight will approximate this weight closely, 
2.é., Within less than an ounce. I had a young peregrine that, 
weighing 2 Ibs. 3 oz., would kill houbara, and 2 238 2 oz., heron ; 
but at this weight she would never even try a ond flight. I 
reduced her weight we some time to 2 lbs. and rar she would 
kill several houbara in a morning. She, also, at this weight took 
to chasing pigeons hi being exercised at the lure, though at the 
higher weights she had ignored them. I then brought her up 
again to the weights first mentioned, with the same results. 
When intermewed she still worked best at 2 Ibs.! 

An experienced falconer knows the condition of his hawk by simply 
non his fingers over breast and muscles under the wings, for his fingers 
