FOOTNOTES:
[112] Humā; the Lammergeyer, Bearded Vulture, or Ossifrage. Translators, imagining the Humā to be a fabulous creature, have identified it with the Phœnix. It was a popular Persian superstition that the shadow of a Humā falling on a person’s head predicted his rise to sovereignty. The adjective (and proper name) humāyūn, signifying “august,” “fortunate,” and “royal,” is derived from this bird. In the Panjab, the Lammergeyer, common as it is, seems to have no special native name.
[113] It is well-known that the Lammergeyer does not confine itself to dry bones. I once saw one shot in the Tochi valley over a dead fowl laid out as a bait. When shot it was carrying off the fowl in its beak and not in its feet. The most contradictory statements exist regarding its habits. As it sweeps round the hill side, the fowls in the compounds show no alarm and will let it pass within a very few yards of them. At Kingri, in Baluchistan, I saw one stoop at a flock of chukor and sent a sowar to the spot to see what had happened: the man returned with a chukor, unbroken and still warm. Some years ago at Sheikh-budin, the hill station near Dera Ismail Khan, I saw one stoop repeatedly at a mārk͟hor kid, on a narrow ledge on the cliff-face below me. At each stoop the plucky mother lowered her horns to the “charge,” and effectually repulsed the attacks of the assailant. Whether the Lammergeyer was really trying to brush the kid off the cliff, with intent to feed on its mangled remains, or whether it was merely animated by that spirit of mischief that enters into birds as well as beasts, I cannot say. The Pathan shikārīs with me stated that they knew from experience that the former was the case. A shot Lammergeyer shown to a tame monkey will drive it into a paroxysm of terror. Can it be that the latter recognizes in it a natural enemy, or does it mistake it for an eagle?
[114] Saʿdī: Gulistan, Chap. I, St. 3.
[115] In Kurdistān, and a little over a hundred miles south of Lake Urūmiah.
[116] ʿUqāb. The author uses this word as a generic term. By falconers of certain parts of the Panjab the name is specially applied to the Tawny Eagle.
[117] The author applies the name chark͟h only to nestlings of the Saker Falcon: passage falcons he calls bālābān. In the Panjab, and in Kabul, the species is termed respectively charg͟h and chark͟h, the word bālābān being unknown except to a travelled few.
[118] Qara-qūsh. Any eagle, but specially the golden eagle. For a description of this “flight” see pages 113-114.
CHAPTER XI
THE OSPREY[119]
[The author gives only a very brief description of the Osprey and its habits, mentioning the peculiar structure of its feet, and its habit of hovering over water. He also mentions that like the Shikra Sparrow-hawk (Pīg͟hū), and the Sangak, the iris is sometimes dark and sometimes yellow.[120] He adds:]—
I once took one alive with a chark͟h and kept it in confinement for some little time. It could not be induced to eat meat, refusing all food except fish. It is with reference to the osprey that the poet has said:—
“Thro’ the mercy of God and His tender care
The sea yields her fish to the fowl of the air.”