[296] Two hostile tribes that live in the Syrian desert. They are noted for their breed of horses.
[297] “Hard-penned,” i.e., hard-feathered.
[298] “... When the pups [greyhound] are three or four months old, their education commences. The boys drive out of their holes the jerboa or the rat called “boualal” and set the pups at them. The latter by degrees get excited, dash after them at full speed, bark furiously at their holes, and only give up the pursuit to begin another. At the age of five or six months they are assigned a prey more difficult to catch—the hare....”—The Horses of the Sahara and the Manners of the Desert, by E. Daumas. “McMaster says of its agility [the Indian Jerboa-rat or Kangaroo-rat—Gerbillus indicus]: ‘I have seen them when released from a trap baffle and elude dogs in the most extraordinary manner by wonderful jumps made over the backs, and apparently into the very teeth of their pursuers’.”—Mammalia of India; Sterndale.
[299] Chark͟h-shinās, adj.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SHRIKE
Amongst the “black-eyed” birds of prey must be classed a small sparrow-like bird, grey and black in colouring. In the Kurdish language it is called bāzūrī, and in Persian ālā güzkina.[300] In size it is somewhat larger than a sparrow: the wings are dark: the eyes have a dark line of antimony:[301] the claws and beak are black, sharp, and powerful. When trained, it kills with ease sparrows and the small tisks[302] found in the wheat and barley, in Spring. It also comes well to the lure from a distance.
There are two species. One grey and black with the antimony line under the eyes, and one yellowish. The former is decidedly the better.[303]
FOOTNOTES:
[300] This is Turkish, not Persian. Persian Turks call the shrike ālā güzina also. In Shaw’s Turki Vocabulary (Appendix by Scully), Lanius Homeyeri, the Grey Shrike, is said to be called ālā g͟hurālāi, and Lanius arenarius, the Desert Shrike, boz̤ g͟hurālāi. The word ālā in Turki means “variegated” or “spotted.” In Lahore to Yarkand (page 182) the Brown Shrike, Lanius Cristatus, is said to be called urulia in Turki.
[301] Surma kashīda; antimony is applied by means of a needle to an Eastern’s eye, underneath the lashes of the under lids, and to the outer corners of the eyes.