FOOTNOTES:
[140] Haggard Sakers will generally fly at harriers, refusing to give up the chase and so getting lost. A haggard peregrine I had killed a harrier.
[141] Chīlāq-i qāpāq-i kūtāh.
[142] Dāl; elsewhere dāl-i murdār-k͟hur.
[143] Kachal charkas; the Egyptian Vulture: kachal means “scald-headed;” charkas is corrupted form of karkas, a common term for a vulture. The Egyptian vulture feeds largely on human ordure, a habit that can be traced in the popular name given to it by soldiers in India.
[144] K͟hazīna, k͟hazāna, “the gut.” This word does not mean the “crop.”
[145] ʿAz̤m-i zawraqī, lit. “boat-bone.”
CHAPTER XV
THE RAVEN
Raven.—The Raven,[147] though a carrion feeder, has just claims to be considered a Bird of Prey. I recollect once seeing a raven in the jungle seize a wild chukor; I eventually succeeded in releasing the bird from its clutches.
It is a peculiarity of the Raven that if it is deprived of sight by having its eyeballs pierced with a needle, it may, by confinement in darkness for the space of twenty-four hours, be completely restored to sight.
In ʿArabistān it is caught in traps and trained for fowling in the same manner that the Kestril[148] is trained in the Dashtistān[149] of Fārs, and the eagle-owl in Kirmānshāh[150] and elsewhere.