This species is very widely distributed. It is divided into three varieties—namely, the dark, the light and the yellow.
The best shāhīns are procured from three districts: from Urūm[180] in Ottoman territory, from Ardabīl[181] in Persia, and from the hills of Shammar[182] in Arabia on the road to the holy city of Mecca.
The Urūm shahin is particularly common in Sīvās,[183] which place may be described as the “mine” of this variety. My private opinion, however, is that this, the shahin of Urūm, is not a shahin at all, but the young of the Peregrine; i.e., when snared it is a “peregrine,” when taken from the nest a “shahin.” My reason for forming this opinion is that I happened one Spring to be in Sīvās and called on the Governor. At my request he gave me a guide, who conducted me to a spot about two farsak͟h from the city, where there was a shahin’s eyrie in the hill-side. I sat down to observe it. My patience was soon rewarded by the appearance of the parent birds, bringing food for their young. I observed the birds closely, and discovered that they were not shahins but peregrines. This strengthened my previous supposition that confusion existed between the nestling and the passage hawk of the same species.
On another occasion I met a shikārchī[184] in Sīvās, with a peregrine on his fist. “What have you there,” I asked, “and what does it kill?” His reply was, “This is a shahin, which I took myself from the nest, and which I have trained to take eagles.” I accompanied him to his house, where he showed me ten or fifteen live eagles with clipped wings, which he kept loose near the house. It appeared that they had all been taken with the falcon then on his fist. I was seized with a desire to possess her, and offered him a large price; but he declined to part with his treasure.
The Shāhīn OF Jabal Shammar.—Although the shahin from the mountains of Shammar is small, the female not exceeding in size the male of the other two species, still it is swift, bold, and easily entered to quarry, small or great. One eyrie, known by the name Jarāza, is especially famous; eyesses obtained from it are better and bolder than all others.
Though the passage shahin has more pace and a better wind than the eyess, it is far less tractable, for it has preyed for itself in the jungle, and is filled with overweening pride of its powers of flight. Say you have, with infinite pains, succeeded in training one to large quarry, and have unhooded her at a common crane or a heron, and that suddenly, beneath her, she spies a wild duck, or a pigeon, or some other small quarry. What does she do? She “checks,” forsaking the large quarry for the small, and fills you with bitter disappointment. Now an eyess shahin will not act in this scurvy manner.
Supposing a passage falcon, shahin or peregrine, comes into your possession and you have no choice but to enter her to large quarry, you should blind her in the left eye, for when her right eye is on the quarry she has no spare eye to cast elsewhere, and her whole attention is necessarily occupied with the quarry at which she has been unhooded. This is in accordance with the saying of the poet:—
I have successfully made the experiment and speak from experience.
Should you, however, wish to keep her for small quarry, on no account blind her. For small quarry you will find her better than the eyess: she will ring up better, especially after Royston Crows[186] and those blackguardly yāplāq owls.[187]
As remarked previously, the passage shahin and the peregrine are one and the same, with this difference, that the peregrine is stronger and larger. The courage of the peregrine, too, is greater than that of the passage shahin.
Rūmalī[188] eyess shahins are bolder than all others—especially the dark variety.
[177] It must be recollected that the term shāhīn includes the peregrine.
[178] Good evidence, but not proof, since there is nothing to show that the “shāhīn” was flying its fastest, or that the condition of both birds was the same. Vide also note 236, page 56.
[179] Blanford (Eastern Persia, vol. II., page 103), writes:—“Persian falconers distinguished three varieties of Shahin, the Stambulī, Karabāghī and Fārsī, the first from Western Asia Minor, the second from Circassia, Georgia and Armenia, and the third from Southern Persia. The first has the darkest plumage, the last the lightest.... The Shahin is, however, not so much used in Persia as formerly; indeed, I have never seen it out of the royal mews, except when brought to Bushire, for sale to the Arabs of the opposite coast. The falcon described by Marco Polo as found in the mountains of Paríz near Karmán, can be no other than the Sháhín. The old traveller says, ‘In the mountains of Paríz near Karmán are found the best falcons in the world. They are inferior in size to the peregrine, red on the breast, under the neck and between the thighs; their flight is so swift that no bird can escape them’.”
Considerable confusion exists as to the term Shāhīn. Arab falconers in the Persian Gulf and the Persians of Bushire call the female peregrine shāhīna, and rarely baḥrīya. The Shayk͟hs of Baḥrayn Island procure peregrines from Bushire. The shāhīn (but not the peregrine) seems to be unknown in Baṣrah and Bag͟hdād. An Arabic MS. composed in the tenth century says, “If you desire to possess a shāhīn, then procure one of the peregrine (baḥrī) kind, especially if it be black-backed, ugly-faced, narrow-bodied, short-tailed, large-headed, sunken-eyed, piercing-eyed, large-beaked, deep-mouthed, short-backed, with long flight-feathers, and wings far apart from the body.” The peregrine (baḥrī) is unknown to the falconers of Kirman except by name. The shāhīn, however, is not uncommon in the district. The translator, who was for eighteen months in Kirman, found three nests of the shāhīn and one of the charg͟h. The shāhīns of Pārīz are, however, no longer famous.
[180] Is this meant for Erzerum?
[181] Ardabīl is East of Tabrīz and almost on the Caspian. It is a convict station.
[182] Shammar is a hilly district in Central Arabia.
[183] Sīvās. Is this the town in Asia Minor on the river Kizl Irmak and south of Trebizond?
[184] Shikārchī is the Turkish equivalent of the Hindustani shikārī. These words do not necessarily refer to professionals.
[185] In Persian, “to regard with the left eye” is an idiom for “to gaze at with contempt; to regard as an enemy.”
[186] Kulāg͟h-i ablaq, lit. “the piebald crow,” is the Royston Crow or a species exactly like it; it is common round Baghdad and in Persia. (The English magpie is also common in Persia and may locally be so named.)—Vide page 55, note 227.
[187] Yāplāg͟h-i pidar-sag, “the dog-fathered yāplāq,” is perhaps the Indian grass-owl or a species like it. The Author also calls another species, probably the Short-eared Owl, yāplāg͟h, but omits the epithet “son of a dog” when mentioning it. The former is a difficult quarry, the latter an easy one.—Vide note 2, page 23.
[188] Apparently an adjective from Urūm.