Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/310

296 a huge "tiger of the air," an Ukab towering in his "pride of place," high above the dense vapours and the reflected heat of the plains. He was apparently determined to dine on a Bashab, for, fast as we shifted our position, he followed us from Jheel to Jheel, and ended by triumphantly ejecting us fom his hunting-grounds.

The Ukab, or Scinde vulture, alluded to in this extract is a mortal enemy to every species of hawk; witness the following example, related to Mr. Burton by the Ameer Ibrahim Khan Talpur:

"Well, Sahib," continued the Ameer, speaking by jerks, as his breathlessness allowed him; "one day I flew my beautiful Baihri after a little heron which we all expected to see killed in a moment. They took the air well together, when, of a sudden, 'See the Ukab! oh, the Ukab!' cried the Bazdar. True enough! High above us was the wretch, a black dot in the blue sky, looking out, like an Affghan, for what he could plunder. We shouted—we waved the lure: unfortunately my poor Bahri was so eager after her quarry, that nothing could tempt her out of the way of destruction. Then the Ukab disappeared from our eyes, and we thought that the Maloon had been frightened by our noise. The falcon and the little heron kept rising and rising, till we lost sight of them also. Presently, by the Prophet's beard I swear to you, Sahib, as we stood looking upwards with straining eyes, a speck appeared like a fly in the air, larger and larger it grew, the instant after, plump fell a body at our feet. It was poor Sohni, my falcon. The accursed vulture had shattered her skull with his foul beak. And since that day I have liberally dispensed Kisas to all his breed."

Mr. Burton and Mr. Barker both agree that the round-winged hawks have been much neglected in this country. Both in the Levant and on the Indus they are principally used, although by far the more expensive to purchase, reclaim, and keep. "I doubt," says Mr. Burton, "whether Falco gentilis in the West ever gave better sport than does one of Ibrahim Khan's favourite goshawks."

Our old authors appear to have been fond of commending the goshawk. Turbervile, in the "Book of Falconrie," speaks highly of its qualities. Others designate it a "choice and dainty bird." "Most majestic," says Mr. Burton, "was her attitude as she sat upon the arms of royalty, clasping it with her singles (toes), and firmly resisting the wind—chevauchant le vent, as French falconers express it—with the stiffness of an eagle." Sir Thomas Sebright, however, one of the few living falconers, expresses his surprise that any one should use goshawks for sport; and others insult the bird by declaring that she is only a big sparrow-hawk. The fact is, Mr. Burton says, that a good goshawk is an excellent bird, but, at the same time, as difficult to find good as she is common. Mr. W. B. Barker, who has trained a German goshawk from the Zoological Gardens, and introduced two trained birds into this country from the Taurus, says, that without wishing to detract from the merits of the peregrine or lanner, that, generally speaking, the goshawk will answer the purposes of most sportsmen; and if ever falconry, he says, is revived in England, this bird will be the one to which we must have recourse.

The goshawk of the Indus is so game a bird, that it will kill even the antelope; a fact of which Mr. Burton gives us a very graphic pen-and-pencil illustration. We can only extract the first: