[92] Apparently a slip on the author’s part. Fahd is properly the cheeta or hunting-leopard and not the panther. In Persian the former is called yūz and sometimes yūz-palang, while the latter is called palang only.
[93] In Seebohm’s British Birds, it is stated that the eagle owl preys on capercailzie and fawns, besides hares and other game.
[94] Partridges are caught in this manner by the Baluchis round Dera Ghazi Khan. Vide also Shaw’s High Tartary, Yarkand and Kashgar.
CHAPTER VIII
OTHER SPECIES OF OWLS
[Short-eared Owl; Long-eared Owl.—The author now imperfectly describes five or six species of owl, which the translator is unable with any certainty to identify. The first species mentioned by him is the Yāplāg͟h or Yāplāq, and this species he again divides into two sub-species or races, viz., the “Desert or Plain Yāplāq,” and the “Garden or Grove Yāplāq.” The colour of the latter is said to be somewhat darker than that of the former. The first species is probably the Short-eared Owl (Otus brachyotus); while the second is probably either the Common Long-eared Owl (Otus vulgaris), or the Tawny Wood-Owl. The author also states that the former species, once it has successfully shifted from the first stoop of the falcon and has begun to “tower,”[96] is an exceedingly difficult quarry, and that only a passage Shāhīn or Peregrine is equal to the flight, the Saker not being swift enough.[97] The latter species of owl, he adds, is a poor performer and unable to “ring up”[96] to any great distance without being overtaken and killed.
Indian Grass-Owl.—The Short-eared Owl is, however, an easier quarry than the Indian Grass-Owl (Strix candida), which in India is taken both with Sakers and Peregrines. If, however, the Saker is not in high condition (in much higher condition than it is usually kept by natives of India), both hawk and quarry will soon be lost to view, ringing up, on a calm day completely out of sight and almost perpendicularly into the sky. In this species the iris is dark; it is therefore presumed that neither it nor any nearly allied species can be included under the name yāplāq.
Indian falconers, however, in the Panjab, have only one name for both the Short-eared and the Grass-Owl.
Afghan falconers state that, in their country, the Short-eared Owl is a common quarry for the Saker, as well as for the Peregrine.
The author continues:]—
Bride of the Well.—The next species of owl is smaller than the Yāplāq, and is hornless. Its prevailing colour is a yellowish white, something like that of the Tīqūn Goshawk. This species is especially common in Baghdad and other sacred places.[98] It is known to the Arabs by the name of the “Bride of the Well.”[99] It preys principally on the pigeons of the “Sacred Precincts;”[100] for that cuckoldy pimp, lacking regard and consideration, has settled that the pigeons of the precincts[100] are its proper prey, so it hunts them in the night-watches. In the Spring the attendants pull out the young owls from their holes in the walls, or from the interiors of the domes, and slay them. This species is smaller than the Yāplāq.