IV
FROM AN OLD PERSIAN PAINTING, INDIAN, PROBABLY OF THE MUG͟HAL PERIOD

I remember having once seen a “cast”[39] of this variety—male and female—in the possession of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh[40] (now a resident of Paradise), both of which were exceptionally fine performers in the field.

The people of Turkistan, who are highly skilled in the art of training goshawks, call this variety lāziqī.[41]

It is commonly believed by falconers and bird-catchers, that in the early spring, when the female goshawk is desirous of the attentions of a male, she utters loud and plaintive cries, which attract to her many species of birds. From these she selects a male of a species different from herself,[42] and the result of this union is a diversiform progeny. However, the kāfūrī or lāziqī variety is the offspring of two white parents.

The following circumstance lends some colouring of truth to this quaint belief:—

Some years ago a hawk of this species was brought from Russia and presented as a curiosity to the late Shāh, who, in turn, bestowed it on Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā,[43] Governor of the Province of Fārs. The Governor (now in the abode of the Blessed) forwarded it to me—the contemptible. It must have been a bird of four or five moults, when it came into the possession of this slave. After infinite pains I succeeded in taking with it one solitary chukor,[44] and that, too, a bird harried and worn out by another hawk. It had a very villainous and scurvy disposition. The plumage of this hawk, an unusually large female, was peculiar, in that its feathers were alternately snow-white and raven-black; the claws and beak were of the colour of mother-of-pearl, and the eyes were a reddish yellow. I feel confident her albino mother had mated with a raven, and that this spurious half-caste was the result of the union. There is some truth in the statements of the bird-catchers.

The above description is given, as it seems in some measure to support the stories of the bird-catchers. Sure and certain knowledge, however, rests with God.

V
FROM A PAINTING IN AN ANCIENT PERSIAN MS. WRITTEN IN INDIA