FOOTNOTES:
[731] “When yowre hawkes fete be swollyn she hath the podagre.”—Boke of St. Albans. “Podager” is said to be gout in the feet (from pod “a foot”), but the name was probably applied to the initial stage of the “pinne in the feet” of other writers.
[732] Mīk͟hak.
[733] “Bating” on a hard perch during the moult when the hawk is heavy, will also cause this disease. Also a hard perch when the pressure always falls on the same spot, will produce it. Hawks moulted on sand do not suffer from it.
[734] Ḥafā, Ar., is “the sole of the foot of man or beast being chafed or worn down by travel.”
[735] i.e., dyed by indigo, which has medicinal properties.
[736] The top?
[737] Qū, and colloquially in Turkish qāv, “touch wood.” Yābis mis̤lu ’l-qāv, “dry as touch wood,” is a common Arab saying in Baghdad.
[738] Qalam, the “stalke” of old English falconers.
[739] Mūmiyā, “mummy,” is a name in Eastern bazaars now applied to several forms of asphalte, mineral pitch, Jew’s pitch, and maltha. Formerly the name was applied to Egyptian mummy; and by the vulgar at the present day this mysterious medicine is supposed to be the extract of negro-boy boiled in oil. “Mummy-oil” is made by mixing equal parts of mummy and clarified butter over the fire.
[740] Ordinary poultices or repeated fomentations will produce the same result.
[741] An Indian remedy, whether good or ill, I cannot say, is to keep the hawk on a lump of rock salt instead of on a perch: vide page 175, note [747].
[742] In India a sparrow-hawk’s perch is usually a wooden peg driven into the mud wall of the living-room.
[743] The translator tried this treatment with success, but it was difficult to keep the tail-feathers from being stained a green k͟hākī colour.
[744] Anār-i shīrīn, “sweet pomegranate,” is a particular variety.
[745] Ispand-i sabz, “green (or black) ispand,” is the variety used in medicine: ispand-i zard or isfarza-yi zard, “yellow ispand,” is used to keep off the evil-eye. Ispand is, I am told by an authority, the seed of Peganum Harmala, one of the rue family.
[746] Bahla, “hawking glove”: gardānīdan, “carrying.”
[747] In the Booke of Kepinge of Sparhawkes, a cold stone is mentioned as a cure; vide also note [741], p. 174.
CHAPTER LVII
ON PARALYSIS OF A TOE
Sometimes a hawk loses all power in one of its toes and is quite unable to grasp its food with it. Treatment: apply a leech. If this fail, brand the toe lengthways with a needle, taking care that the tendon[748] is not burnt. If these two remedies fail, waste no time in further treatment, and “labour not at beating cold iron.” Many a hawk have I seen with this disease, but seldom a cure. The long-winged hawks are more liable to it than the short-winged. Perhaps the injury arises from a strain, by the hawk grasping her food too tight and straining or tearing a tendon. Now a severed tendon will not join. Should such an accident happen to your hawk, God grant that it fall on one of her small toes, for that is not so serious; but if it happen to one of her “hunting talons”[749] she is ruined; she can do no good at all.
O hawk, if of your hand a tendon break
For evermore you must the hunt forsake.