FALCONRY.

THE Pæan of the Falcons is being sung again. An amusement originally derived from the East, where the "Grand Seignior" once boasted of a retinue of 6000 falconers, and still almost universally practised in countries where people are too indolent for the more active sports of the field, is about to be brought back from the same country, and is again spoken of as a most noble and gentle pursuit-fit for "knight and ladye fair;" a source of healthy and innocent enjoyment, and, above all, a pageant of past glory."

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Knox, in his pretty little treatise on "Game Birds and Wild Fowl," has given a graphic account of this exhilarating sport; Mr. W. B. Barker, who has had much experience of the art as practised in the Levant, has devoted two interesting chapters to the subject in his work on "Cilicia ;" and we have now before us a still more graphic and amusing sketch of Oriental falconry, in Mr. Burton's "Falconry in the Valley of the Indus."

It would be difficult, indeed, to imagine scenes for sport of any description more prolific or more gorgeous than are presented by the long Valley

of the Indus.

It was a heart-gladdening spectacle for a sportsman. The pure blue sheet of water lined with a fringe of vivid green, was literally covered with feathered life. The king-curlew with his ruby crown, and the common curlew so celebrated, despite his homely garb, for the soaring and racing chase he affords, were pacing the banks in busy troops. Gulls and graceful terns hovered over the marsh, here alone in the air, there mingled with flights of red and white Brahminee ducks, wheeling about in search of a spot to light on. The tall Saras stood in pairs, now plunging their bills into the shallow waters, now scattering pearly drops from their pink throats: the bittern's ruff peeped out of the green weeds, and the snowy white cloak of the paddy-bird glistened dazzlingly amongst the russet-coloured uniforms of duck and diver, snipe and snippet, plover and wild goose. Lank herons were there, and stout matronly pelicans gazing stolidly before them, with bustards large as turkeys, and a goodly array of plump little teal; the painted snipe with beautiful dark colours ornamenting his wings; the mallard with his gorgeous plume, and many varieties of quiet-looking cranes swam, and dived, and shook, and splashed, all screaming, each in his own tongue, their natural joy in a life to them at that moment full of charms.

The fates protected the denizens of that marsh. Hawks generally dislike flying at birds over water; and unfortunately for us the thick vegetation of the leeward bank prevented our taking the wind of the water-fowl.

This became apparent, when a couple of matchlock balls whizzing through the air, and the loud report ringing upon the surface of the Jheel, startled its Occupants from their proper occupations. Those that caught sight of the hawks fled shrieking down the wind towards another pond, in a straight line, so that pursuit would have inevitably entailed the loss of a Bashah. Others, with instinctive cunning, wheeled round and round the crystal floor, never passing its limits, till fear allowed them to settle again. A few, but so few, exposed themselves to danger, that we lost nearly two hours in "bagging" half a dozen snipe and teal.

Presently we left the marsh. Our Bazdar had remarked, with many curses,

* Falconry in the Valley of the Indus. By Richard F. Burton, Lieut. Bombay Army, Author of "Goa and the Blue Mountains," &c. John Van Voorst.

a huge "tiger of the air," an Ukab towering in his "pride of place," high above the dense vapours and the reflected heat of the plains. He was apparently determined to dine on a Bashah, for, fast as we shifted our position, he followed us from Jheel to Jheel, and ended by triumphantly ejecting us from his hunting-grounds.

The Ukab, or Scinde vulture, alluded to in this extract is a mortal enemy to every species of hawk; witness the following example, related to Mr. Burton by the Ameer Ibrahim Khan Talpur :

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Well, Sahib," continued the Ameer, speaking by jerks, as his breathlessness allowed him; one day I flew my beautiful Bahri after a little heron which we all expected to see killed in a moment. They took the air well together, when, of a sudden, 'See the Ukab! oh, the Ukab!' cried the Bazdar. True enough! High above us was the wretch, a black dot in the blue sky, looking out, like an Affghan, for what he could plunder. We shouted-we waved the lure unfortunately my poor Bahri was so eager after her quarry, that nothing could tempt her out of the way of destruction. Then the Ukab disappeared from our eyes, and we thought that the Maloon had been frightened by our noise. The falcon and the little heron kept rising and rising, till we lost sight of them also. Presently, by the Prophet's beard I swear to you, Sahib, as we stood looking upwards with straining eyes, a speck appeared like a fly in the air, larger and larger it grew, the instant after, plump fell a body at our feet. It was poor Sohni, my falcon. The accursed vulture had shattered her skull with his foul beak. And since that day I have liberally dispensed Kisas to all his breed."

Mr. Burton and Mr. Barker both agree that the round-winged hawks have been much neglected in this country. Both in the Levant and on the Indus they are principally used, although by far the more expensive to purchase, reclaim, and keep. "I doubt," says Mr. Burton, "whether Falco gentilis in the West ever gave better sport than does one of Ibrahim Khan's favourite goshawks."

Our old authors appear to have been fond of commending the goshawk. Turbervile, in the "Book of Falconrie," speaks highly of its qualities. Others designate it a "choice and dainty bird." "Most majestic," says Mr. Burton, "was her attitude as she sat upon the arms of royalty, clasping it with her singles (toes), and firmly resisting the wind -chevauchant le vent, as French falconers express it-with the stiffness of an eagle." Sir Thomas Sebright, however, one of the few living falconers, expresses his surprise that any one should use goshawks for sport; and others insult the bird by declaring that she is only a big sparrowhawk. The fact is, Mr. Burton says, that a good goshawk is an excellent bird, but, at the same time, as difficult to find good as she is common. Mr. W. B. Barker, who has trained a German goshawk from the Zoological Gardens, and introduced two trained birds into this country from the Taurus, says, that without wishing to detract from the merits of the peregrine or lanner, that, generally speaking, the goshawk will answer the purposes of most sportsmen; and if ever falconry, he says, is revived in England, this bird will be the one to which we must have recourse.

The goshawk of the Indus is so game a bird, that it will kill even the antelope; a fact of which Mr. Burton gives us a very graphic pen-andpencil illustration. We can only extract the first:

"Stop!" said the Ameer, painfully excited. "You, Gul Mammad, ride softly round, and place yourself behind the brow of that hill. You, Fauju, to the opposite side."

My friend's acute coup d'œil had marked a pair of antelopes quietly grazing in the bit of green valley far beyond. A glance through the glass assured me that he had not erred: what to the naked eye appeared two formless, yellow marks upon a field of still undried grass, became, by means of the telescope, a pair of those beautiful little beings our poets call " gazelles."

Ibrahim Khan disposed his force skilfully. Reserving the falconer and a Kuttewala with two fierce, gaunt Kelat greyhounds, he stationed his men in a circle concealed from the sharp eyes of the antelopes, leaving a gap to windward of them to prevent the scent reaching their nostrils, and to serve as a trap for them to fall into.

Presently the horsemen, emerging from behind the rocks and hill tops, began to advance slowly towards the quarry, and in a moment the startled animals, sighting the forms of many enemies, sprang high up, and bounded towards the only way of escape.

As the doe passed us at headlong speed, the Ameer turned round so as to conceal her from the view of the goshawk. A few moments afterwards I gave the signal; he bent forward over his mare's neck, and directing the Shahbaz towards the buck as he flew by, threw up the bird from his wrist with a shout. The two greyhounds, free from the leash, dashed forward at that moment. All was hurry and excitement. Horsemen and footmen crowded in pursuit, every man straining his eyes to keep the quarry in full view.

The rocky ground, unfavourable to the pursuers, was all the antelope could desire. His long thin legs, almost disproportioned to the size of the body, were scarcely visible, so rapid were their twinkling motions. Here he cleared a huge boulder of rock, there he plunged into the air over the topmost twigs of a euphorbium bush; here he threaded his way through the pebbly bed of a torrent, there perched for an instant upon a stony ledge, he fearlessly prepared to foot the slippery descent beyond. Such a country could not but be puzzling to dogs, though ours were wary old greyhounds that had hunted by sight for years; they fell far behind, and to all prospect the gazelle was lost.

"She has eaten too much-a blight upon her mother!" cried a furious voice by my side. The Ameer was right. Had his bird been sharper set, the chase would have lost half its difficulty.

The Shahbaz, who at first had flown gallantly at the quarry, soon began to check, and as we were riding far behind over the difficult ground, appeared inclined to abandon her game. But when, escaping from the punchbowl of rock, we reached a long level plain of silt, the aspect of affairs improved.

At a distance, which was palpably diminishing, we saw the goshawk attacking her game. Now she swooped upon its back, deeply scoring the delicate yellow coat as she passed by. Then she descended upon the animal's head, deafening it with her clashing pinions, and blinding it with her talons. This manœuvre, at first seldom practised out of respect for the dagger-like horns, whose sharp, black tips never failed to touch the pursuer's balai, or pendent feathers, was soon preferred to the other. As the victim, losing strength and breath by excess of fear, could no longer use its weapons with the same dexterity, the boldness of the Shahbaz increased. She seemed to perch upon its brow once or twice it fell, and when it arose, its staggering, uncertain gait gave evidence of extreme distress.

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Then the dogs, who had become ferocious as wolves, gained sensibly upon their victim. The sound of their approach but added to its terror what it took from its speed. Even before they had fastened their fangs upon its quarters, the unhappy gazelle was stretched panting and struggling, with the Shahbaz straining every nerve to pin its head to the ground.*

Mr. Barker thinks that Mr. Burton's Shahin must have been a lanner, or a peregrine. Goshawks cannot, he says, take gazelles, which never start at a lesser distance than 300 yards, and the goshawk cannot fly fast enough, or far enough, to overtake them. In the Levant, the Barbary peregrine is called Shahin, or Sheheen.

The death of the gazelle is now considered the highest triumph of Eastern falconry:

Meer Ibrahim Khan Talpur the remainder of that day was almost as lively a companion as a subaltern newly returned from "seeing service." He slew his antelope some twenty successive deaths, praised to the skies everything that was his especially; more especially his Bashabs, his falconer, his dogs, his dogkeeper; most especially as her due, his goshawk. As regards the latter. a little romancing was allowed to mingle its alloy with the pure vein of veritable history. Every bough we saw on our way home reminded him of some doubtful exploit performed by that same Shahbaz. At dinner, the gazelle steaks brought her mention prominently forward, and the music, wine, and joviality of the evening elevating him, also tended in no small degree to elevate her and her qualities. At last it was proposed to try her upon one of the wild goats that roam over the deserts separating Cutch from Scinde. "Her success," said the Ameer, "is certain."

Certain," repeated Kakoo Mall.

"Certain," nodded Hari Chand, whispering: "the gazelle of this year, next year will be a Gorkhar!"

Whether the sneer has, or has not been justified, I know not. Perhaps it may so happen that in some day to come the Ameer Ibrahim, seduced by the gobemouche auditory of a wonder-loving British traveller, may point to the bird in question with a

"You see that Shahbaz? Well, Wallah! By the beard of the Prophet I swear to you, five years ago she felled a wild ass. You may believe me; although a Beloch, I do not tell a lie. Billah! A 'man-with-a-hat' was with me when it happened. Ask Burton Sahib, if it did not."

Then will Kakoo Mall, if he be living, ejaculate "certainly," and Hari Chand, if he be present, exclaim "certainly" and, in a word, every man and boy that has ears to hear and eyes to see, will re-echo "certainly," and swear himself an eye-witness of the event, to the extreme confusion of Fact and Fiction.

We doubt much, however, if the reader will peruse this account of the death of the antelope without a pang. Mr. Burton says, "There is an eternal sameness in the operation of shooting, which must make it-one would suppose-very uninteresting to any but those endowed with an undue development of destructiveness." And Colonel Bonham, of the 10th Hussars, we are told by Mr. Knox, has laid aside the gun and the rifle for the enjoyment of the "noble craft;" but the gun has at least the advantage of putting a bird, generally speaking, out of misery at once. Who can read the following conclusion of a combat between a Khairu, a hobby-hawk, and a crow, without feeling for the victims of the sport?

The battle is not finished. Corvus, in spite of his fall, his terror, a rent in the region of the back, and several desperate pecks, still fights gallantly. This is the time for the falconer to assist his bird. From the neighbouring mimosas, roused by the cries of their wounded comrade, pours forth a "rabble rout" of crows, with noise and turmoil, wheeling over the hawk's head, and occasionally pouncing upon her, unguibus et rostris, with all the ferocity of hungry peregrines. We tremble for Khairu. Knowing her danger, we hurry on, as fast as our legs can carry us, shouting, shooting pellets, and anathematising the crows. We arrive, but hardly in time. As we plunge through the last bushes which separate us from the hawk, twenty cawers rise flurriedly from the ground: the Bazdar hurries to his Laghar. The quarry lies stone dead, but poor Khairu when taken up and inspected by thirty pair of eyes, is found to have lost her sight, and to be otherwise so grievously mauled, pecked, and clawed, that the most sanguine prepare themselves for her present decease.

Alas, poor Khairu!

It is undoubtedly very picturesque to read of knights riding out with hawk on fist, and knight's lady on fiery jennet, with merlin clasping her embroidered glove, the look of the thing, the pomp of its apparatus, and the antique costume impart a kind of black-letter interest to the good old sport; there was excitement, also, in witnessing the combined working of horses, hawks, and hounds, but we doubt if of the kind well suited to "ladye fair." The effect upon the temper of the Ameers of Scinde appears to have been anything but agreeable. A sparrow-hawk had been thrown at a pigeon.

Unfortunately, however, for the hawk and my friend's temper, she had not been "sharp set" that morning. This at once became apparent from her manœuvres. Instead of grappling with the quarry, she “ checked" first at one bird, then at the other, amused herself with following them on the wing, and lastly, when tired of the unprofitable exercise, she "raked off," and retiring to one of the Peepul branches, took up a position there with such firmuess of purpose that all the falconer's “Ao Bachehs” and violent swingings of the lure were unavailing to dislodge her.

The Ameer's brow clouded: certain angry flashes escaped his eyes, and low growlings threatened an approaching storm. For a Beloch to make such a goose of himself! Every one stole furtive glances at the blunderer, the lean nephew; and even he, despite his habitual surliness of demeanour, could not help showing in looks and manner that conscience was stirring up uncomfort able sensations within him.

"Give me the bow," shouted the Ameer in his fury, "and let me do for that brother-in-law of a bit of carrion at once."

The Bazdar wishing, but not daring to deprecate such an atrocious act of sacrilege as the shooting of a hawk, slowly handed a polished horn kaman to his master, and a tako or blunt arrow shod with a bit of horn. The Scindians are particularly expert at the use of this weapon; they throw the missile transversely so as to strike with the side, and when a large covey is the mark aimed at, they sometimes bring down as many as three or four birds with a pair of shafts. So it happened that the Shikrah, who was quietly "mantling" upon a clear branch in a nice sunny place, had the life summarily knocked out of her by the Ameer's tako.

Falconry, as a partial sport, is, however, well worthy of preservation, more so than the situation of a grand falconer without falcons. The enclosed state of our country makes it objectionable for the peregrine, which cannot be easily followed; but the goshawk can be followed at a handcanter, and Mr. Barker tells us that there is at the Zoological Gardens a precious and beautiful specimen of the Australian goshawk, which is perfectly white, with eyes the colour of bright rubies, and which he thinks would, from its large hands and small body, be swifter in flight, and, on the whole, a more efficient bird than our goshawk. "It forms," says Mr. Barker, "in my opinion, the beau-ideal of perfection in a hawk. I consider it worthy of a princely hand, and should be happy to see his Royal Highness Prince Albert patronise the training of this bird to afford amusement to our young Prince of Wales."

March-VOL. XCVII. NO. CCCLXXXVII.

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