FOOTNOTES:
[278] I am unable to identify this hawk.
[279] Pīqū or pīg͟hū, the shikra of India.
[280] Usually present in the young as well as in the old shikra.
[281] Arzaq-chashm, properly “blue-eyed.” Young shikras have sometimes bluish grey eyes.
[282] “Imp to” is to repair broken flight- or tail-feathers by sewing in, “grafting,” etc.: for methods vide Badminton Library.
CHAPTER XXV
THE KESTRIL[283]
There are two species of kestril. One species is yellowish in colouration and is covered with very pretty spots and markings; the other is yellowish but without markings, whilst its claws are small and white.
The first species, the “black-clawed” kestril,[284] kills in a wild state, sparrows, quails, starlings[285] and such small quarry, but as it is ill-tempered and slow of flight, falconers care little for it. It, however, serves several purposes.
First: In Bushire and the desert tract of Fārs[286] it is caught and trained as the Raven is trained by the Arabs.[287] A raven is caught and so trained to “wait” on, that it will circle above the head for half an hour. A fine cord about forty inches long is fastened to its legs having at the end a bunch of feathers the size of a sparrow. Thus prepared it is cast off to “wait on.” From a distance it has the appearance of some bird of prey attempting to seize a small bird, and this, arousing jealousy, attracts bālābāns and other birds of prey from a distance. Then, on the arrival of, say, a bālābān with the other birds, the raven settles, when the fowler lets fly a pigeon in front of the bālābān. The latter fancies this is the quarry the raven was chasing.[288] The moment it seizes the pigeon it is snared. Bālābāns are also caught with kestrils trained in this manner.[289]
Second: If you want to take passage sakers with an eyess saker (chark͟h), catch one or two kestrils in a du-gaza or sparrow-hawk net,[290] “seel” their eyes and fly them as “trains.” Next fly your eyess[291] at a wild bālābān: it will certainly not fail to take it.[292]
For an eyess saker that is being trained to take eagles and sakers, kestrils and buzzards[293] are necessary “trains.”
When giving a buzzard as a “train” the hind claw must be firmly bound back to the shank. Also for the first three or four times meat must be tied to its back before it is shown to and released for the eyess. When the young hawk takes the “train,” she should be fed on freshly-killed pigeon or chicken flesh. It is not, however, necessary to tie back the hind claw of a kestril, as it is too weak to inflict an injury.
Third: the tail, especially that of the moulted and mature bird, is excellent for imping the broken tail-feathers of a sparrow-hawk.
Lesser Kestril.—As for the “White-clawed [the Lesser] Kestril” the only useful thing about it is its tail, which can be used for “imping.” In a wild state it preys on nothing but locusts and lizards.
In the country of Syria, on the way to Constantinople, I have observed this species nesting inside the rooms of houses, in the niches in the walls, and on the ledges[294] in the rooms. No one molests the birds. They fly in flocks[295] like pigeons. Whenever you see kestrils flying in a flock you may feel assured that they are the “white-clawed” species, for the black-clawed species never flies in flocks.
Training Greyhound Pup by means of the Common Kestril.—The Arabs of ʿUnayza and Shammar,[296] as I have myself witnessed, rear the nestling of the Common Kestril, and when it is “hard-penned,”[297] lure it with a lump of meat. As soon as it will somewhat come to this lure, they catch an antelope-rat or jerboa-rat, tie a cord to its leg, and fly the kestril at it. They next tie a long cord of ten or twelve ells in length to a rat’s leg, and then fly the kestril at it from a distance. After that they break one leg of a jerboa, and let it go in front of a two months’ old greyhound pup, and then cast off the kestril at it. The rat is taken after a few stoops. Next a jerboa is loosed in front of two greyhound pups three or four months old.[298] The pups start in pursuit, and the kestril is then cast off. At one time the pups make a dash, at another the kestril makes a stoop, till at last the rat is taken.
After killing a few rats with broken legs, a sound rat is released, a fine stick, four fingers’ breadth in length, having previously been passed cross-ways through the ears. This stick hinders the rat from taking refuge in a hole, for of course two-months-old pups cannot, unaided, overtake and kill a kangaroo-rat in the open country. Well, the rat is let go, and the kestril and the pups give chase. It is exactly like hawking gazelle with a chark͟h. After about thirty or forty stoops and dashes, the rat is taken.
The whole object of this play is to teach the pups, while growing up, to recognize the chark͟h;[299] so that should a hawk be flown at a herd of even a thousand gazelle, the hounds will chase none but the one at which the hawk is stooping. In puppyhood the hound has learnt that without the assistance of the kestril it cannot overtake an antelope-rat, and hence it has learnt to watch the hawk; and gradually it becomes so knowing, that instead of at once starting in pursuit of the gazelle-herd when it is slipped, it will fix its gaze skywards, and wait on the movements of the chark͟h.