Chapter XXIV The Sangak278
This “falcon” closely resembles the Indian Sparrow-Hawk,279 but the young bird is smaller and darker in colouration. Also it has not the dark stripe under the chin.280 The only difference between the two is that the Sangak is black-eyed while the Pīqū is yellow-eyed.281
In the jungle it preys chiefly on locusts and frogs, but occasionally kills a small wounded or diseased bird. It haunts “gardens,” and, like the hobby, nests in trees. However, it is a bird impotent and unvalued, except for its tail, which can be used for “imping”282 that of a pīqū.
The “intermewed” bird and the nestling are identical in plumage, and cannot be distinguished from each other.
Footnotes
278 I am unable to identify this hawk.
279 Pīqū or pīg͟hū, the shikra of India.
280 Usually present in the young as well as in the old shikra.
281 Arzaq-chashm, properly “blue-eyed.” Young shikras have sometimes bluish grey eyes.
282 “Imp to” is to repair broken flight- or tail-feathers by sewing in, “grafting,” etc.: for methods vide Badminton Library.