The Art and Practice of Hawking

by E. B. Michell

The beak and nares of a hawk should be kept clean, and a good falconer will, after she has finished her meal, wipe off any remnants of food or blood which may remain attached to the upper mandible. Unless this is done—sometimes, indeed, in spite of its being done—the nostrils and upper parts of the cere, where the feathers begin, may become infested with acari, or mites, which, unless destroyed, will eat into the horn and the flesh and cause great annoyance, if not actual sores and inflamed ulcers. Hawks which are in low condition are particularly subject to this pest; but at all times a sharp look-out should be kept, so as to detect the presence of the minute parasites, which may be seen running about somewhere near the nostrils. Fortunately it is easy to get rid of them. A solution of tobacco soaked in water should be made, and mixed with brandy or some strong spirit, and then applied with a small brush to the parts visited by the parasites. After a few applications they will be found to have disappeared.

Hawks will often get corns on their feet if allowed to stand constantly on hard blocks or perches. It is strange enough that there should be found any falconers who have so little thought for the comfort of their charges that they will use such resting-places. The screen-perch, at all events, which is kept permanently indoors, should have a padding of some kind—cloth, baize, or soft leather—underneath the canvas or sacking upon which the hawk has to stand. One of the cruellest of all the cruel things done in zoological gardens is the neglect to pad the miserable perches provided for the birds of prey, which are usually in consequence seen to have their feet adorned plentifully with corns and deformities. What with bad food, bad resting-places, and defective bathing accommodation, these poor captives are usually types of what the falconer should wish that his hawks may not become.

Of actual illnesses trained hawks undoubtedly have their full share. The old books devote many lengthy chapters to the description of these disorders, and of the remedies recommended for them. How far the elaborate concoctions prescribed by mediæval quacks and used, as it is to be presumed, by their very credulous customers, were efficacious in curing the evils for which they were prescribed, it is not easy to say. For in modern times we do not put much faith in nostrums of any such kind. But as the ancients certainly killed with their hawks several species of quarry which we hardly attempt in these days, it may not unreasonably be supposed that some of their medicines were at least useful in stimulating the energies of their patients, and inspiring them with a sort of artificial courage such as the Asiatic falconers still impart by the use of sal ammoniac and other powerful drugs. It is, I think, more than probable that the hobby, which has not for a long time past been successfully trained, was brought by physicking into such condition that she would fly keenly and well, and deserved the praises which some of the old writers lavish upon her. In the palmy days of falconry it was not only when a hawk was actually ill that physic was given. If she did not acquit herself in the field with all the credit expected by her trainer, he dosed her almost as a matter of course. Remedies of a more or less fanciful kind were supposed to exist for almost every failing which hawk-flesh is heir to; and the medicine-cupboard of a falconer who professed to know anything about physicking his charges must have contained as many herbs, spices, powders, decoctions, and tinctures as would stock a small druggist’s shop. As far as I know, no modern falconer has had the patience or temerity to test the value of these multifarious pills and potions.

The state of health of a hawk may be ascertained by various signs, more or less infallible. Mutes, castings, and the general demeanour furnish the most obvious symptoms; but the books, which bestow a vast amount of attention upon the two former, are much too silent as to the latter and more subtle indication of an incipient malady. The falconer should always observe the colour of every hawk’s mutes. If she is kept for any long time at a stretch upon a screen-perch under which the sawdust or sand is so thickly strewn as to absorb them altogether, a piece of paper must be placed occasionally under the perch, which will enable him to make the necessary inspection. And at the first appearance of anything wrong the proper remedy should be applied. The mutes of a hawk in good health should be of an almost uniform bright white colour, and of the consistency of the whiting with which a lawn-tennis ground is usually marked out. If there are specks of black in them there is no cause for alarm, but these should not be abundant or large in size. If any other colour is to be seen there is something amiss; and if the mutes are either watery or too thick the hawk is not in proper health. The sooner these symptoms are detected and the right steps taken the easier will be the cure; and in most cases a diet of freshly-killed birds given in moderation twice a day will set matters right without any resort to strong measures. If, however, the discoloration is great, and appears suddenly, a dose should be at once given before the sufferer loses her appetite and becomes unable to retain food or anything else in her crop.

Castings are easily found under the perch or round the block, though when hawks are tied very near to one another on the same screen-perch it is sometimes difficult enough to know which of them has thrown a casting which is picked up between her and her neighbour. The appearance of them should always be noticed before they are thrown away. They should be more or less egg-shaped and compact, with no great amount of oily matter adhering to the outside. The colour should be rather darker than that of the feathers, fur, wool, or whatever else has been taken to form the casting; and if it is not so, it is a sign that the crop is foul. A hawk in good health should also cast within a reasonable time after the casting has been swallowed; and otherwise you may suspect that the gorge is clogged. A hawk which has been fed late even in a summer evening should throw up her casting before eight at latest on the following morning. When a hawk is slow at casting, she should be carried a bit, and will then often cast on the fist, or immediately upon being put off it on to the block. A wild merlin will often eat the whole of a small bird between 8 and 9 a.m., put it over by about 2 p.m., cast, and then begin to look out for the evening meal.

A trained hawk may cast well and have fairly good mutes, and yet be all the better for a small dose. If she has a dull eye and stands stolidly on her block without taking notice of passing birds; if she eats without zest, or flies without animation; if, when standing on the fist, she takes a weak grip with her feet, or puffs out her feathers without cause, or folds her wings loosely together, she may indeed be healthy enough to get a doctor’s certificate, but she is not in the sort of fettle to do herself justice in the field. In such case do not, like some falconers who ought to know better, begin calling the hawk names, and neglect her, while bestowing extra attention upon one which exhibits more aptitude. Remember that in the wild state there is no such thing as a bad hawk. All find their living, even in the worst weather, and find it although continually plagued and thwarted by the knowledge that if they go within gunshot of a man they will probably be murdered. Cannot a trained hawk, well housed and regularly fed, and freed from the constant fear of gun and trap, be made as fast and as clever even as the worst of her wild brethren? Falconers must be a long way behind the professors of other arts and crafts if they cannot make their trained pets at least nearly as good as the wild and untrained. There is perhaps more delight in flying a hawk which is never out of sorts and always naturally ready to do her best. But it is more creditable to the trainer, and a greater test of his skill, if he can impart excellence where he found little sign of it, and in short make a bad hawk fly well. The Indian native falconers—from whom, by the way, we have a lot to learn—habitually fly some of their favourite hawks, such as the saker, under the stimulus of strong drugs; and there can be no doubt that many hawks of all species are bettered by frequent dosing, just as a Chinaman by opium, and certain literary celebrities by absinthe. In some cases these doses supply more or less effectually the lack of exercise from which a trained hawk suffers, and in other cases possibly they act as an antidote to the feeling of annoyance and discontent arising from captivity and confinement.

As to the particular remedy to be applied when a bird is thus out of sorts without being absolutely ill, I fear the reader must be referred to one of the old text-books, and not alarmed by quotations at length from their well-garnished pages. The mischief proceeds, of course, either from excessive cold or excessive heat in the system, which will require consequently either heating or cooling medicine. For the former purpose, spices and peppers will be preferred, with fatty substances, such as oil or bacon; while for the latter, purgatives may be used, and meat washed in the juice of certain vegetable products, such as endive, cucumber, or melon. If the malady is so strong as to amount to fever, the hawk’s feet may be bathed with water distilled from lettuce, plantain, or nightshade, or the juice of henbane. If, however, the earliest symptoms are noted, it will generally serve all purposes to give hot feeds, i.e. birds just killed, in the case of cold, and washed meat in the case of too great heat. Those who are not content to wait for such symptoms, but prefer a prophylactic treatment, may perhaps be satisfied with the following prescription: “If you intend to keepe and maintayne your Falcons and all other Hawkes in health, take Germander, Pelamountayne, Basill, Grimel-sede, and Broome flowers, of each of them halfe an ownce; of Isop, of Saxifrage, of Polipodic, and of Horse-mintes, of each of them a quarter of an ownce; of Nutmegges, a quarter of an ownce; of Cucubes, Borage, Mummy, Mogemort, Sage, of the four kinds of Mirobolans, Indorum, Kabulorum, Beliricorum, and Embelicorum, of each of them halfe an ownce; of Saffron, an ownce; and of Aloes Cicotrine, the fifth part of an ownce. All these things confect to a powder, and at every eygth day, or at every twelfth day, give your Hawkes (the big ones, that is) the quantitie of a beane of it with their meate. And if they will not take it so, put it in a Henne’s gutte, tied at both ends, or else after some other meanes, so as ye cause them to receive it downe; and lette them stand emptie one houre after.” A more simple preventive medicine is Aloes Cicotrine alone, given every eighteen days as an emetic, just after the hawk has cast, and followed in two hours’ time by a warm meal.

Coming now to specific maladies, the commonest and not the least dangerous of the complaints to which trained hawks are subject is the “croaks” or “kecks,” an affection of the throat akin to what is called bronchitis in the human patient. Its existence is betrayed by a wheezing or hoarseness, noticeable as the hawk breathes. In slight cases the sound is scarcely audible, and only very occasionally; but when the attack is a bad one, the breath is impeded, and the invalid appears to be suffering from a sort of asthma. These severe attacks sometimes come on suddenly in bad weather, and generally prove fatal; but the milder attacks, if attended to in time, may often be mastered and vanish permanently. The cause is usually the same as that which would in men induce a cold in the head or throat,—a chill caused by sudden changes of temperature, excessive cold, or, most frequently of all, excessive damp. The remedy is to put the sufferer in a warm and dry place, and to give the most palatable and nourishing food in moderate quantities at reasonably short intervals, with a peppercorn or mustard-seed now and then. Freshly-killed birds are the best diet; but if sheep’s heart or butcher’s meat is given, it should be first warmed a little. The hawk should not be left out of doors after midday, or in a place exposed to the wind. Strangely enough, gers, whose habitat is in more northern latitudes than any other hawks, are the most susceptible of all to this malady; and special care should be taken, therefore, that they are not allowed to be in damp or draughty places.

Cramp is a terrible disorder, also caused by damp or cold. It is specially apt to attack the short-winged hawks, and is, I believe, always fatal. Eyess sparrow-hawks taken too early from the nest are pretty sure to develop it when there is no maternal wing to cover them at night. Possibly by keeping them in an artificial nest in a warm place the mischief might be averted; but the slightest chill seems to bring it on, and when once it takes hold of the feet and legs it appears to paralyse and permanently disable them. Beginning with a mere stiffness in the joints, it increases in malignity until the sufferer loses the use of one or more limbs, and then often paralyses the muscles of the back. When the very first symptoms of anything like stiffness appear in a goshawk or sparrow-hawk, no matter of what age, she should be taken at once into quite a warm place, and the affected limb fomented with hot water and embrocations. Unless these remedies speedily give relief the most humane thing to do is to put the hawk out of her misery at once. In this matter not only is prevention better than cure, it is the only means known of combating the dreaded disease.