Another method of training Chark͟h AND Bālābān to Gazelle.—The people of the Fārs desert train the chark͟h and bālābān to gazelle by another method. In the early Autumn when the passage sakers are caught, they tame[528] one and lure it with the gazelle’s head. When thoroughly entered to this lure,[529] they tie it up in a dark place till its bones get set and strong, and its marrow becomes black,[530] and the bird itself fills out and grows stout and vigorous. Twenty days before the Naw-rūz[531] they take it up, and every morning and every evening lure it,[532] etc., with the gazelle head. Now in the hot climate of this desert, young gazelles are born from between ten to fifteen days before the Naw-rūz to ten to fifteen days after it. A “train”[533] of a small fawn is given, and the hawk is then flown in the desert at young fawns, which on account of their small size[534] are easily taken, and she is so flown till the young fawns begin to go about with their dams. After the bālābān has taken seven or eight fawns, she will readily single out the young fawn from the dam. When in this manner she has singled out and taken seven or eight[535] fawn at foot, it is considered sufficient; the weather, too, has grown too hot to go out into the country: the hawks are therefore of necessity set down to moult.

After being taken up out of the moult, they are, next season, given two or three “trains”[536] before being flown at a large wild gazelle.

If the falconer has the patience, this last method is, for the following reasons, the best. First; the hawk, when taken out of the moult, having not forgotten the six or seven fawns she killed in the Spring, will, when flown in the Autumn, single out the smallest quarry. Second; the long rest will have set and hardened her young bones so that she will not be liable to get swollen feet.[537] Third; she will have become domesticated, will have learnt wisdom, and will not be liable to get lost.

Do not be in the least afraid that your hawk, having been entered to fawns, will not tackle a horned buck[538] or a full-grown gazelle. If she is keen, you can fly her at two or three bucks that happen to be together without a female. These three bucks have not been cast in one mould: one is certain to be rather smaller than the others, and this one your hawk will single out. If you find a single buck, let it be even as big as the foal of an ass, she will tackle it all right. But if, one day, you fly her at an old buck, and the hounds not arriving she wears herself out and gets jostled or injured, you may rest assured that in the second moult she will not tackle an old buck. She will still, however, take does, or small young bucks that are only one or two years old.

A bālābān that has been trained by this last method is certainly better than one trained by either of the preceding methods.