CHAPTER XX

THE EYESS SAKER FALCON

The eyess _chark͟h_[229] is of four kinds. First there is the variety that in the Spring[230] months breeds in the hills of Persia and Turkey.[231]

Another is found in Nejd[232] in Turkish territory, where it lays its eggs on the bare ground, like the black-breasted sand-grouse,[233] and the houbara bustard. This variety is called _chark͟h-i māniʿī_.[234]

Another kind nests in the hills and dry water-courses of Nejd. From thence nestlings are obtained by the Arabs who style them _Ḥijāzī_.[235]

All these kinds, if obtained from the nest, are _chark͟h_, and if snared after they have left the nest are _lafīf_.

The _chark͟h-i māniʿī_ is exceptionally good, whether for gazelle, or common crane, or golden eagle: you can train it to anything. I am able to state that it is faster even than the _shāhīn_, for I have often flown one at crane in company with a _shāhīn_, and it has reached and “bound” to the crane a long way ahead of it.[236]

The colouration of the _māniʿī_ varies, but that variety that has very red markings on the back, like a kestril,[237] is the best. Of all the _chark͟hs_ of the world the _māniʿī_ with red spots on the back is the best. Although it is an eyess (_chark͟h_) and is obtained from the nest, it is equal to any noble passage falcon (_bālābān_) of the _ḥurr ṣāfī_ race. It is to be obtained only from the Arabs of _Unayza_.[238] In that waterless part of _ʿArabistān_ its chief prey is houbara and hare.[239]

FOOTNOTES:

[223] _Fārsī_ and _Aḥmar Shāmī_.

[224] The common crane is, in the air, an easier quarry than the heron. The struggle on the ground is, however, severe and highly dangerous, as the crane uses its sharp claw with great effect.

[225] _Vide_ page 54, note 215.

[226] Some Indian and Persian falconers I questioned in Baghdad had never met with a falcon that answered this description. The _Lagaṛ_ falcon (_F. Jugger_) of India—a desert falcon—does not answer to the description. Also it does not appear to be found in Persia or Asia Minor.

[227] _Kulāg͟h-i kūchak u ablaq_, presumably “the hooded crow,” common around Baghdad and in Persia. The author probably styles it “small” as compared to the raven, which is sometimes called by the same name. _Vide_ page 46, note 186.

[228] _Durrāj_, “the francolin.”

[229] _Chark͟h_ is the eyess saker, and _bālābān_ the passage saker.

[230] There are four distinct seasons of the year, in Persia. The Spring, unlike the Indian Spring, is long and cool. The Saker falcon migrates from the Panjab much earlier than the peregrine.

[231] _i.e._, Turkish territory.

[232] Nejd, in central Arabia, directly west of Baḥrayn Island.

[233] _Bāqir-qara_ T. and _Siyāh-sīnah_ P.: both words signify literally “black breast.” The Arab gentleman mentioned in note 215, page 54, informed me that in certain localities the saker nests on the bare ground. _Vide_ also page 115, note 491. An Englishman told me that he once, in Wales, found two peregrine’s eggs laid on the bare open ground close to a cliff edge.

[234] Has _māniʿī_ here the signification of “difficult of access”?

[235] _Ḥijāz_, a province on the Red Sea. It is not in Nejd.

[236] This is no sure test of swiftness, for a peregrine flown with a large and powerful saker often flies “cunning.” _Vide_ note 178, page 42.

[237] I have known a saker that in the immature plumage was white and covered with spots (such a saker is styled in the Kapurthala State _chītal charg͟h_ and is there considered useless for anything except hare) assume this red kestril-like plumage on its first moult.

[238] _Unayza_, name of a tribe and of a place in West Nejd. The tribe is famous for a breed of horses, larger and coarser than the Nejd breed. The name is said to be the diminutive of either _anza_, a “she-goat” or of _anaza_, a “javelin.”

[239] All sakers in a wild state occasionally prey on houbara. Trained haggards, but not young passage hawks, will as a rule take hare without being entered by a “train.” Perhaps during the nesting season, the parent birds are driven to killing hare. I have seen a young passage hawk of mine, flying close to the ground, carry a hare for two or three hundred yards. The hare, a fine hill specimen, weighed 4½ lbs., while the saker weighed only 2 lbs. 4 oz. I have seen an “intermewed” saker stoop at, and strike, a large hare on the head, with such force that the hare never moved again. In Dresser’s _Birds of Europe_ it is stated on the authority of Colonel Przevalsky that in Mongolia, in Winter, the chief food of the saker is the Alpine hare.