Note 194 — Chapter XVIII · THE PEREGRINE (BAḤRĪ)

Ṣaʿwa. I believe this is properly a wagtail, but the term is by some Turks also applied to a species of sparrow. Miyān Mahmūd Sāhibzāda, of Taunsa, a Muslim friend of mine, and a keen and successful falconer of considerable experience, is of opinion that though a goshawk should be long, it should have a short tail and a short tarsus. As a matter of course the hawk should be heavy and well furnished, the flesh being hard, not soft. “Never,” said this authority, “buy a camel, a horse, or a goshawk, with a short neck. A long neck is a sign of staying power and vigour.” The present Nawāb of Teri says that, in his experience, goshawks with sharp clean claws are inferior to those with worn and blunted nails, and this experience is confirmed by other Panjab falconers. Blunt and worn nails probably indicate that a hawk is keen and persevering; that after it “puts in” the partridge, it runs round and round the cover on foot and does not give up the chase. Indians, or rather Panjabis, object to light eyes in a goshawk. “...; the worst you can say by an hawke for their shape is, that shee is a long slender and beesome-tailed hawke.”—Bert. “In yor choice observe when yo buy, a larg beake, a larg foote, a short train, an upright stande, and all of a peece.”—Harting (quoting a MS. in the British Museum): vide page ix, Introduction, Booke for Keping of Sparchawkes. In the latter work the “Tokens of a Good Hawke” are: “Large: heade slender: beake thick and greate like a parot: seare sayre: nares wyde: stalke short and bygg: foote large, wyde, and full of strengeth: mail thick: wynges large wt narow fethers: heye of fleshe and euer disposed to feede egerly.”