FOOTNOTES:
[134] Chīlāq T. The kite is rare in Persia. It is, however, fairly common near Bushire.
[135] ʿAmūd Ar., “a prop, a pillar.”
[136] Turk. This word properly includes Turks, Tartars, and all who claim their descent from Turk the son of Japhet. A large proportion of the population of Persia is Turkish.
[137] Qāpāq, the “deck-feathers” of old English falconers. According to the Boke of St. Albans the centre or uppermost tail-feather was called the beme feder of the tayle, the flight-feathers being called the beme federes of the wyng.
[138] Sāq, properly the shin or shank of a man, animal, or bird. Elsewhere the author, with one other exception, uses the word qalam, “a pen, etc.,” for “tarsus.”
[139] The Kites have short tarsi, the Harriers, long. In the adult Harriers the iris is yellow, but in the immature birds, of several species at any rate, the iris is brown. The iris of the common Pariah Kite (Milvus govinda) is brown, while that of the “Common Kite” of England (M. regalis) is said to be yellow.
CHAPTER XIV
THE VULTURES
Vulture.—[The author now briefly describes a species of bare-necked vulture that he calls Dāl, apparently the only species of true vulture known to him. The description contains nothing of interest. He continues:]—
Scavenger or Egyptian Vulture.—Before the first moult the plumage of the Scavenger Vulture is dark, with a few small light-coloured spots on the back and breast. The head is nude and yellow. After the first moult, a certain number of white feathers make their appearance. After the second, the bird becomes quite white, with the exception of the ends of the flight-feathers, which remain black.
The gut[144] of this vulture, which is at the end of the sternum,[145] applied as a poultice, fresh and warm, for three consecutive days, is a certain cure for scabbed eyes that water, and from which the lashes have dropped off, or for fistulous sores that will yield to no ointment. The poultices should not be removed for twelve hours: it will then be noticed that numerous minute worms have been drawn by them from the wound. At the third application, if it please God, a cure will be effected. The author can testify to the efficacy of this remedy.
Use as a “train.”—If it is intended to train a chark͟h to take eagles, it should first be given the necessary “trains” by hand, and then entered to wild quarry by being flown a few times at young scavenger vultures in the dark immature plumage. As they are slow on the wing and show no fight,[146] the young chark͟h can take them with ease.
Though purely carrion feeders, the Vultures (as also the Raven described in the next chapter) are generally included amongst the Rapacious Birds: these huge birds, with beaks powerful enough to tear open the skin of a dead camel or ass, are unable to catch and kill even a helpless partridge.