The hobby resembles the merlin somewhat, but is larger, darker in colouring, and prettier in appearance. It has long broad wings, dark in colouring. Its feet are small and yellow. In a wild state it kills larks and such-like small quarry, hunting well, like the merlin, but it is evil-natured and cowardly.[274] In the Shamīrānāt and in Māzandarān[275] it nests in the gardens.[276] Nestlings, however, are useless. The female is about the size of a shahin tiercel. It can be trained, but with much trouble. You can, however, train one easily to fly in company with a merlin, and make it kill by means of the merlin’s assistance. More than this is not to be expected of it.[277] If, as I say, you get a fine female passage falcon, call it to the lure and fly it at “trains” and wild quarry, in company with a merlin, but never bother yourself with an eyess.
[273] Layl, “The Hobby.”
[274] A hobby is too cowardly to be caught by a common quail as a bait. I have frequently tried and failed, but on substituting a sparrow have succeeded instantly. Lieut.-Colonel E. Delmé Radcliffe in his pamphlet on Falconry states that the European Hobby is sometimes trained in India and flown at the Hoopoe and the male at the Diongo-Shrike or “King-crow.” I have, however, never met with any Panjabī falconer who had heard of one being trained with success.
[275] For Shamīrānāt, vide note 169, page 40. Mazenderan is a province on the south coast of the Caspian.
[276] In the desert, the bag͟hs or “gardens” are the only places where there are tall trees.
[277] The hobby is not trained in the Panjab. In Albin’s Natural History of Birds (pub. 1738) it is stated that “The Fowlers, to catch these Hawks, take a Lark and having blinded her and fastened Lime-twigs to her legs, let her fly where they see the Hobby is, which striking at the Lark is entangled with the Lime-twigs.”