FOOTNOTES:
[782] Dawr-chī, “a soarer,” i.e., a hawk given to the vice of soaring. Dawr kardan, “to soar; also to ring up.”
[783] Jarka: apparently the “coverts,” but this is not the word used elsewhere by the author for “coverts.”
[784] “... When he is at the height of his familiarity, cut out of either wing three of his best flying feathers, and put to his heeles a knocking paire of bels, and so traine him when his want of power will hinder his desire to trauaile further, then you may with ease follow him.”—Bert’s Treatise of Hawkes and Hawking (page 77, Harting’s reprint).
[785] Such a course would be fatal with a peregrine, for if a peregrine is trained and flown in low condition she will certainly take to soaring when brought into high or proper condition. Sakers, however, are not inclined to soar.
[786] Dawr kardan va parsa zadan. A dervish or professional story-teller sends round the hat at the most exciting point of his tale and this is called parsa zadan; hence any going round.
[787] Shikras are slow, and in India are always held in the hand and thrown like a ball. The hawk is placed on the palm of the right hand and collected, its legs and tail projecting between the thumb and fore-finger. A careful falconer uses a small pad, as, from constant grasping, the feathers become soiled and ragged.
[788] Buland shudan, “to rise.”
[789] Trained sakers will chase duck; but do they kill them in a wild state? A saker if gorged on the flesh of a water-fowl will often vomit. A fine haggard saker of the translator’s got violently sick from eating the flesh of the common heron; its stomach was so upset by the flesh that it could digest no other meat, and died. A small quantity, however, of heron’s flesh may do no harm. This objection does not apply so much to the flesh of the purple heron and of the night-heron. Vide note [591], p. 137.
[790] “But if you will have me grant that which I cannot yeelde unto, that hauing flowne a Partridge to a house, notwithstanding all these kinde courses taken with her, thee hath caught a Hen, then let some one in the company, that can tell how to doe it, make haste unto her, taking up both Hawke and Hen, and runne to a pond or pit of water, (there is no dwelling house inhabited, and where hens are, but you shall finde some water) and thereinto ouer-head and taile wash them both together three or foure times.... It is not possible there should be a hawke so ill but by this means she will be recouered.”—Bert’s Treatise of Hawkes and Hawking (pages 54-55, Harting’s reprint). An Indian device to disgust a hawk with a particular quarry is to rub asafœtida on it. This is said to be effectual. It is, however, not always an easy matter to break a hawk of a quarry at which she flies with zest. The translator once had a young passage-saker trained to and flown only a few times at kite. He took the quarry from her without rewarding her, a dog frightened her, an old woman threw a blanket over her; in fact she suffered every ill a kite-hawk can suffer after taking the quarry, but she was not broken of the quarry.
CHAPTER LXVII
ON BRANDING THE NOSTRILS BEFORE SETTING DOWN TO MOULT
Before setting down long-winged hawks that have been flown at great quarry, it is necessary to brand their nostrils, and this is especially necessary in the case of gazelle- and crane-hawks; for the orifice of the nose of a long-winged hawk is a pit, and when the throat of a gazelle is cut and the hawk pulls at the spurting throat, her nostrils become filled with blood, which congeals and stops the passage of her breath; the blood cannot be completely removed by washing, for the nostril is like a well. Take a packing needle and make it red-hot and brand the “button”[791] in the centre of the nostril, and with the point of the needle clean out the tube of the nostril shaping it like a spout,[792] so that you may hereafter be able to rinse out the nostril and remove the congealed blood.
For long-winged hawks flown at large quarry, especially for gazelle- and crane-hawks, branding the tube of the nostril is essential. Perhaps you will say, “Why has not the All-knowing God created hawks with noses ready branded?” The reply is that in a wild state these hawks prey on small quarry, such as pigeons and sand-grouse and larks, and, what is more, at their own leisure they first plume the quarry and then eat it, so that only their beaks get defiled by the blood and these are cleaned on the ground after the meal. But the trained hawk is artificially flown at gazelle and crane, and out of her hungry eagerness she buries all her head in the throat of the quarry as soon as it is cut. Now the main artery in a gazelle’s throat will send the blood spouting out for ten paces’ distance, and so, too, with a crane.
If a hawk’s nostrils with a brand you sear,
Its wind suffices to pursue the deer.