FOOTNOTES:
[779] This “placing a person under an obligation” is a common Eastern idea. Indian falconers will press their perquisites of old bells, jesses, and hoods, on their friends in order to “mount an obligation on him.”
[780] Chalqū.
[781] Considerable skill is necessary to cast off a short-winged hawk so as to really aid her. The difference that skilful casting makes, in the amount of quarry taken, is astonishing.
CHAPTER LXVI
CURE FOR THE VICE OF “SOARING”
Perhaps a goshawk or a sparrow-hawk may come into your possession that is naturally addicted to the vice of soaring;[782] that is, when you cast her at any quarry she will either take it at once, or, failing to do so, will give up and take to soaring and soon disappear from view. With such hawks there are three courses to be pursued, all three of which I have tested and proved.
First device.—Slightly brand the oil-bottle or oil-gland, to produce inflammation. Then thread a needle with two or three threads of silk, and wax them well to strengthen them. At a distance of three fingers’ breadth below the hawk’s oil-gland, insert the needle into the first tail-feather, and bring it out at the twelfth; draw it just so tight that when the tail is spread there will be not more than an interval of a finger’s breadth between each two feathers. When a hawk “soars,” she spreads out her whole tail. Now this silk thread will prevent her spreading her tail to her heart’s content: when she feels the unnatural constraint she will settle and give up the attempt to soar.
Second device.—Cut off four of her flight-feathers on one side on a level with the jarka[783] feathers, laying the severed feathers aside in a safe place till wanted.[784] If the hawk is a sparrow-hawk, go and fly her at quail: if a goshawk, take her into the field and fly her at quarry from a height (giving her the help of gravity), so that she may know that she has lost pace and is lop-sided. Fly her thus with shortened wings for a few days. Certainly, for two or three days, she will take no quarry. The next time she settles, call her from the ground to your fist and feed her up, and give up all thoughts of the quarry. Treat her like this for a few days. Now, when you see that, on failing to take her quarry, she sits on the ground, after she has done so once or twice, imp one of the cut feathers and again fly her. Fly her for four days in succession, every day carefully imping, with a fine needle, one feather. She will have quite forgotten her inclination to “soar.”
You ask advice, then my prescription try,
That she forget this soaring in the sky.
Third device.—Pinch her in flesh considerably. If the weather is cold, every now and then give her a “snack” so that her stomach may not be empty and the cold may not cut her and kill her. Fly her from a height with the help of gravity. If she fails to take her quarry on account of her low condition, she will not attempt to soar, but will sit down; then call her to the fist and feed her up. Now gradually bring her back into her proper flying condition.[785] She will have forgotten her vice of soaring.[786]
I once had a very fine young shikra sparrow-hawk (pīqū), which showed much sport to me and my friends at quail. However, whenever she failed to take her quarry, she used to take to soaring. I cut off four of her flight-feathers, as described above, and for a few days succeeded in taking quail with her merely by the force of my throw,[787] until she quite gave up all thought of soaring: when she failed to take the quarry she sat on the ground. I then imped her four feathers, one by one, in four days. She continued to fly right well, and never again attempted to soar. This device is an invention of your humble servant.
Note of warning.—Should your goshawk, when flown at chukor or seesee, give up the pursuit half way and take to soaring, and should another partridge rise[788] and the hawk then leave its soaring and start in pursuit, either taking the partridge in the air or on its putting it, on no account reward her: give her no food at all, for if you do you will confirm her in the habit of soaring. Had not this second partridge risen, your hawk would certainly have soared away out of view.
It sometimes happens that a bālābān trained to heron or crane gives up ringing after a heron, or gives up a flight at a crane, and that a duck[789] or an hubara gets up under her and that she comes down on it and kills it. Go and lift up the hawk and her quarry, and if there be water near, duck both of them well till the hawk lets go. She will not do such a thing a second time.[790]
When once in Noah’s flood her passions cool,
She ne’er again will play the giddy fool.