It is also commonly believed that the Shunqār is the acknowledged sovereign of the hawk tribe, and that should one be placed in the mew, every hawk will step down from its perch in token of humble submission. This, too, is a falsehood, pure and simple,—or else my young man is not a shunqār. At the moment I write I have more than fifty hawks of various kinds in my mews, but not one of them has ever left its perch, or honoured this sovereign, or shown respect in any manner of way. What is more, my fine gentleman the Shunqār stands very much in awe of eagles. Of course I am assuming that this hawk is a “shunqār;” equally of course I may be mistaken. All I know is that neither have I, nor has the oldest falconer in Persia, ever seen a falcon like it. The manner it stoops and recovers[176] is unequalled, either by the Shahin or the Saker. I have several times flown it at common crane with a good shāhīn[177] trained to this flight, and it has always reached the quarry and bound to it before the latter came up.[178] Every one says it is a shunqār. I say so, too. Of the “’tis” and the “’tisn’t” of the case, God alone is the Judge.
FOOTNOTES:
[148] Vide chapter XXV, page 69 for method of training for fowling purposes. I heard of the raven being thus trained and used as a “lure” for charg͟hs, in Baghdad, Baṣrah, and Muhammara.
[149] Dashtistān of Fārs; a warm region fringing the west of the Persian Gulf: Bushire is nearly the centre of its coast line.
[150] Kirmānshāh is a district about 250 miles north of Baṣrah (Bussora): its capital is said to be locally called Kirmānshāhān.
[151] Shunqār. In old Persian MSS. on falconry, this disputed name is undoubtedly applied to a Jerfalcon, a species of which is said to exist in Northern Asia. The following is a footnote from Falconry in the British Isles:—
“We have been informed by travellers that some few large white falcons, which must be Greenland falcons, are caught annually on their passing over the Caspian Sea and that they are highly prized by the falconers of Syria and Persia.”
The late Sirdar Sher ʿAli Khan, the exiled Wālī of Kandahar, told the translator that he kept shunqārs in Afghanistan, and that he once had one that was pure white. Jerdon, quoting Pallas, states that it is the Baschkir Tartar name of the Jerfalcon. Also in Courteille’s Dictionnaire Turk-Oriental we find:—“Shūnqār, faucon, proprement le gerfaut.” Dr. Scully, however, in his Turki vocabulary of birds states that shunqār is the name of Falco Hendersoni, and ītālgū of its female. If the coloured illustration of F. Hendersoni (supposed by its describer to be identical with the shunqār) that was published in the account of the Government Mission to Yarkand be a correct representation of the original, then no falconer, however experienced, can discriminate between F. Hendersoni and many old charg͟hs (F. Cherrug or F. Sacer) caught annually in the Panjab. Further, the Turks of Persia call the charg͟h Ītālgū, Aitalgu, etc.
[152] A.D. 1867.
[153] Qūsh-k͟hāna.