Akbar was very fond of flowers and perfumes and especially enjoyed blooded doves whose care he well understood. About twenty thousand of these peaceful birds are said to have made their home on the battlements of his palace. His historian[23] relates: "His Majesty deigned to improve them in a marvelous manner by crossing the races which had not been done formerly." [Footnote 23: Abul Fazl in Noer, I, 511.] Akbar was passionately fond of hunting and pursued the noble sport in its different forms, especially the tiger hunt and the trapping of wild elephants,[24] but he also hunted with trained falcons and leopards, owning no less than nine hundred hunting leopards. He was not fond of battue; he enjoyed the excitement and exertion of the actual hunt as a means for exercise and recreation, for training the eye and quickening the blood. Akbar took pleasure also in games. Besides chess, cards and other games, fights between animals may especially be mentioned, of which elephant fights were the most common, but there were also contests between camels, buffaloes, cocks, and even frogs, sparrows and spiders. [Footnote 24: M. Elphinstone, 519] Usually, however, the whole day was filled up from the first break of dawn for Akbar with affairs of government and audiences, for every one who had a request or a grievance to bring forward could have access to Akbar, and he showed the same interest in the smallest incidents as in the greatest affairs of state. He also held courts of justice wherever he happened to be residing. No criminal could be punished there without his knowledge and no sentence of death executed until Akbar had given the command three times.[25] [Footnote 25: J.T. Wheeler, IV, I, 168.]