GOSHA WKS zyj 



not be kept in the same house as peregrines, for, if by any acci- 

 dent they get their leash untied, they may kill every other hawk 

 in the mews. Very much more can be done in India with 

 goshawks than in Europe, because — first, there is so much 

 greater a choice of quarry to fly them at ; and, secondly, labour 

 is so much cheaper that a man can be told off solely to attend 

 upon each bird, by which means they are kept tamer and in 

 more constant ' yarak ' than an English falconer in charge of 

 many other hawks can find time to do. 



In Colonel Delm6 Ratcliffe's work on the Falconidse used in 

 India he gives the list of quarry at which he has flown goshawks 

 as follows : — ' Hares, cranes, geese, ducks, teal, houbara, florikin, 

 pea-fowl, jungle-fowl, partridges, crows, kite^, mynas, a great' 

 variety of other birds, and ravine-deer.' With a hst such as 

 this it is no wonder that the goshawk is very highly esteemed, or 

 that her price is sometime as high as 20/. Goshawks seem, from 

 some illustrated works in our possession, to be very popular in 

 Japan, and to be flown chiefly at pheasants, cranes, and wild 

 fowl. They are carried on the left hand, as in Europe, and 

 appear to be rarely hooded, and usually taken from the nest. 



We take from ' Falconry in the British Isles ' the following 

 description of the goshawk : — • 



The colour of the young goshawk differs considerably from that 

 of the mature bird. During the first year the whole of the under- 

 portion of the body is of a rusty salmon-colour, marked with long 

 lanceolate streaks of blackish brown, while the upper part is liver- 

 brown, each feather being margined with reddish-white. At first 

 the eyes are grey r ' this colour gradually changes with age to 

 lemon-yellow, and eventually becomes orange ; the cere is waxen 

 yellow, with tarsi and feet of a deeper tone. At the first change 

 the whole of the under-plumage becomes light grey, striped 

 transversely with narrow bars of a dark brown colour, the top of the 

 head, back, wings and tail becoming of a uniform brown, with five 

 .distinct bars of a darker colour on the latter. There is also a 



■ In very old birds the colour of the eyes changes to a deep fiery red. Gos- 

 hawks do not deteriorate much with age, are at their best at three or four years 

 old, and with care will last up to nine or ten seasons. 



