Baḥrī.—I have already stated my opinion that the Peregrine is merely the Rūmalī Shāhīn caught after it has left the nest.
At any rate the best variety of peregrine is the yellowish, almond[189]-coloured, variety.
I have trained peregrines[190] to gazelle. They are, however, delicate[191] birds, as well as bold and daring: they dash themselves impetuously against the gazelle’s horns and thus frequently injure themselves fatally. This is the reason that falconers do not care to train them to gazelle. Further, on account of the flightiness[192] of their disposition they are not so very highly prized. When choosing a peregrine, select one with large feet, short legs, and long slender wings. Count the scales on the middle toe. Ordinarily there are only seventeen or eighteen.[193] If you find a bird with twenty-one, you have a treasure. A good peregrine should have a fine full breast, a broad back, and toes that are long and lean; and its body should be round and compact. An old master has not without reason sung:—
[189] i.e., the colour of the skin of an almond. The yellow variety of peregrine is avoided by Panjab falconers.
[190] The only Englishman who attempted gazelle hawking in India was the late Sir Harry Lumsden who raised the Corps of Guides. He told the translator that the Amir used to send him from Kabul, at the beginning of the cold weather, trained hawks and greyhounds, as well as falconers. In an article in the Badminton Magazine on Sir Harry Lumsden’s gazelle hawks, there is an illustration of a peregrine striking at a gazelle. This is an error. Sir Harry used only charg͟hs for gazelle.
[191] Delicate compared to the saker, the falcon most prized by Orientals. In Baghdad (in 1900-01) the price of a peregrine had risen from three to ten rupees, whereas a saker was said to be worth as much as seventy rupees. In the Panjab, sakers range from Rs. 3 to Rs. 7. The Saker is, by most Easterns, preferred to the Peregrine, as it is hardier and can, to a certain extent, be fed on butcher’s meat, and still work well; whereas it is impossible to keep a peregrine in first-class condition without a constant supply of doves and pigeons, or birds whose flesh is equally good. Further, in the desert, the crops are scanty, and in consequence the houbara cannot always be marked down in their feeding grounds, but have to be laboriously beaten for by a long line of mounted men in open order; even a young saker will sit barefaced on the rider’s fist without bating, but keeping a sharp look out for the quarry, which, by running round the line or dodging through the intervals, may escape the keen sight of the beaters, but not the keener sight of the falcon.
[192] Hence the epithet yäwā applied to it and to the shahin, in the Kapurthala State.
[193] That is there are, in the female peregrine, seventeen or eighteen large scutæ (pūlak) that extend across the whole breadth of the toe. These scutæ vary greatly in size, and their number is no guide to the length of the toe: a hawk with a large number may have a short toe.
[194] Ṣaʿwa. I believe this is properly a wagtail, but the term is by some Turks also applied to a species of sparrow. Miyān Mahmūd Sāhibzāda, of Taunsa, a Muslim friend of mine, and a keen and successful falconer of considerable experience, is of opinion that though a goshawk should be long, it should have a short tail and a short tarsus. As a matter of course the hawk should be heavy and well furnished, the flesh being hard, not soft. “Never,” said this authority, “buy a camel, a horse, or a goshawk, with a short neck. A long neck is a sign of staying power and vigour.” The present Nawāb of Teri says that, in his experience, goshawks with sharp clean claws are inferior to those with worn and blunted nails, and this experience is confirmed by other Panjab falconers. Blunt and worn nails probably indicate that a hawk is keen and persevering; that after it “puts in” the partridge, it runs round and round the cover on foot and does not give up the chase. Indians, or rather Panjabis, object to light eyes in a goshawk. “...; the worst you can say by an hawke for their shape is, that shee is a long slender and beesome-tailed hawke.”—Bert. “In yor choice observe when yo buy, a larg beake, a larg foote, a short train, an upright stande, and all of a peece.”—Harting (quoting a MS. in the British Museum): vide page ix, Introduction, Booke for Keping of Sparchawkes. In the latter work the “Tokens of a Good Hawke” are: “Large: heade slender: beake thick and greate like a parot: seare sayre: nares wyde: stalke short and bygg: foote large, wyde, and full of strengeth: mail thick: wynges large wt narow fethers: heye of fleshe and euer disposed to feede egerly.”
[195] Many Panjab falconers assert that long charg͟hs are faster and stoop in better style. They are certainly not inferior to the shorter birds.