FOOTNOTES:
[606] Bi-murdan murdan kār-ī mī-kunad.
[607] There is no reason why she should be useless. I have had an intermewed saker of twelve or more moults that was still a first-class hubara hawk, and intermewed peregrines of ten moults that seldom failed to kill either heron or hubara.
[608] Bālābān-i fark͟h: fark͟h, pl. afrāk͟h, A., often means a nestling, but also, as here, (a hawk) in the immature plumage.
[609] Lit. “black-eyed or yellow-eyed”; siyāh-chashm and zard-chashm.
[610] In India the common kite is considered the most difficult quarry of all for the saker: only the saker is flown at it. The kite is very rare in Persia, except near Bushire.
[611] Bāsh-qanāt dādan: bāsh, T., “head,” and qanat, T., “wing.” This consists in holding a live bagged bird in the hand and getting the hawk to “bind” to it from the distance of a foot or so, or getting the hooded hawk to bind to it and then unhooding her: the hawk is of course rewarded either by a pigeon’s wing stealthily inserted under the train’s wing, or the train is killed and the hawk allowed to eat a little.
[612] Bālābān-i buzyūr.
[613] Majhūl.
[614] Dakl u būlī. In a note the author says dakl means dast-par, but as he elsewhere, page 123, note [523], uses dakl for “train” of a deer, this rendering appears inaccurate.
[615] The crane should not be dishevelled. In any case hawks quickly recognize a “train.” I had a young peregrine that, on taking its first wild heron, was badly injured by another hawk, and in consequence refused even to look at a wild heron. It would, however, always take bagged heron released in the jungle before the hood was removed. It also took a bagged common crane.
[616] Probably one or two flight-feathers would have to be tied together to impede its flight. The common crane has a sharp and powerful claw that it can use with effect after the hawk binds. This should be blunted. A hawk of the translator’s once had its wing ripped up by a common crane.
[617] T̤ūlak-k͟hāna.
[618] Bi-t̤ūlak bastan.
[619] Vide page 141.
[620] Amīn, “tame, quiet,” probably means one that by feeding in crops near a village has come to disregard the presence of men. From what he says later, the author apparently intends the crane to be taken on the ground while feeding. The hawk will recognize that it was not a bagged one.
[621] T̤uyūr-i shikārī.
[622] Salaf, a word explained by the author in a marginal note to mean bi-duzda, “secretly.” Apparently by this term the author means that a solitary half-tame crane must be stalked when feeding and the hawk allowed to bind to it on the ground.
[623] The whole party would probably be mounted: a dismounted falconer would be the exception.
[624] Buzyūr-ī bihtar az fark͟h-i t̤ūlak ast.
[625] Fark͟h.
[626] The author’s meaning is not at all clear. He appears to contradict himself. There is probably a copyist’s error somewhere.
[627] Duzd, lit. “thief.”
[628] Sakers leave India in February, i.e., much earlier than Peregrines, and the migrating instinct seems to be more powerful. When the Spring stirs in their blood and the migration restlessness is on them, they will sometimes when unhooded look up skywards, and call. One sign of their becoming mast is bobbing before rousing. Possibly, too, sakers nest earlier than other falcons.
[629] “Intermewed,” i.e., moulted in captivity.
[630] That is the heat of Spring.
[631] Baray-i yadagī u iḥtiyāt̤.
[632] A good saker flown at kite in cantonments will single out and stick to one bird, even when the air is black with kites. Indian falconers generally select a young female kite at which to unhood the hawk. Whether, if the hawk were unhooded at an old bird, she would not be tempted to abandon it for the feebler flight of a young one, is a question.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ON MANAGEMENT DURING THE MOULT
Now let me say a few words concerning the management of hawks in the moult. The more hawks of any kind are flown at quarry and the better they are protected from the severity of heat and cold, the better and quicker will they moult. Hawks moult cleaner and quicker in the hot regions of Persia than in the cold.[635] Further you must pay the greatest attention to the flesh you give them, not feeding them on one kind of meat only, for if you do, they will certainly fall sick.
Now if you wish to moult your hawks in a hot region, such as Baghdad, you must construct out of split-cane a “mew” of a size proportionate to the number of your hawks, building it on the river bank where the Shimāl[636] wind can constantly be felt. In front of this house or room, enclose an open space with a wall.[637] Inside the room, construct at a distance of forty inches from the wall, as many hollow mud platforms as you have hawks.[638] Fill in the top of the platforms with sand and fine gravel, and spread the floor of the room also to the depth of a span with sand and gravel. On the platforms intended for short-winged hawks, spread leaves of willow, or wild mint, fresh and green, or any other kind of greenery, so that the hawks may lie down and rest on it. Next, in front of each platform, construct in the ground a small bathing tank lined with red clay. Every morning early, you must sprinkle the inside of the mew with water, and every evening as soon as the sun has set, you must take out your hawks, short-winged and long-winged, and “weather”[639] them in the open-air enclosure that is in front of their room. In the outside enclosure, too, there must be, dug out of the ground, small tanks, which should be lined with clay. Doubtless you are saying to yourself, “Why can’t I substitute a copper or an earthen basin?” Now, were you to substitute a copper or an earthen basin, there would be a danger that while splashing about in the water, the moulting hawk might strike the half-grown wing- or tail-quills that are full of blood against the hard substance of the basin, and that the injury might cause the blood to dry up in the quills, which would thereby become “strangled,” and would eventually drop out. Now with a tank of beaten clay and sand there is no such danger. In short, every hawk in this outside enclosure also, must have its own bathing-pool.
“Rangle.”—In front of each long-winged hawk there should be a handful of pebbles ranging from a size smaller than a pea to a size larger than a bean; for it is the habit of all falcons[640] in the mew to swallow small stones on most afternoons before they are fed, and to cast them up again with a great deal of “bile.”[641] Should a hawk have stones in her stomach when you feed her, she will retain the meat in her feet and wait a little till she has cast up the stones. Not till then will she feed.
Short-winged hawks do not eat “Rangle.”—Goshawks and other short-winged hawks do not eat stones in the moult.
During the moult you must feed your hawk twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, letting her eat as much as she pleases, so that she be gorged.[642]
If the “mew” be in a “cool-region,” every short-winged hawk, from a common sparrow-hawk to a white goshawk, should have a room to itself, proportionate to its size. A few air-holes should be made on the north side. In this room, two or three perches of varying thickness should be erected, and the perches themselves should not be turned to a uniform thickness, so that the hawk may have a choice and select a perch that suits its fancy at the time. A roomy bathing-pool must also be constructed in the ground. Next, place in the room a piece of matting [made of split cane] to the centre of which a cord is attached. At first you must feed the hawk twice a day, till she is fat. As soon as she is fat, the amount of her food must be a fixed quantity, and this should be bound on to the centre of the matting and left, so that she may feed when she feels inclined.
It is not advisable to keep falcons loose like this in a room; in fact, it is injurious to do so.[643]