The Falcons destined for training must be captured young. Those that have been providing their own food, and have nearly reached maturity, are taken with a lure, which is generally a Pigeon. Young birds which have just left the nest are called eyases; when rather more mature, branchers; that is to say, birds about three months old, strong enough to hop from branch to branch, but incapable of flying or providing for their own subsistence. The latter are preferable to all others, as they are not so young as to require the care necessary to the eyas, and are yet not old enough to have become intractable. At a year old it would be nearly useless to attempt their education; they are then called haggards.
The Falcon being naturally wild, violent, and alike insensible to caresses and chastisements, it can only be tamed by privations, such as want of light, sleep, and food, and also by constantly being cared for by the same person. This is the foundation of the method which the falconer practises.
Fig. 290.—Bewits.
Fig. 291.—Hood.
Fig. 292.—Dressed Falcon.
Supposing that a brancher has been caught, its legs are first made fast in the shackles, or benits ([Fig. 290]), made of straps of supple leather, terminated by bells. Then the falconer, his hand covered with a glove, takes the Falcon on his wrist, and carries it about night and day, without allowing it rest. If the pupil is intractable, refuses to submit, and tries to use its bill, the tamer plunges its head into cold water, and thus produces stupor in the bird. Afterwards the head is covered with a hood ([Fig. 291]), which keeps it in complete darkness. Alter three days and nights of this treatment, rarely more, the bird becomes, to a certain extent, docile. The falconer then accustoms it to take its food quietly; this is presented in the hand, while at the same time a peculiar noise is made, which it learns to recognise as a call. In the meantime it is carried about in frequented places, so as to familiarise it with strangers, and also with horses and dogs, which are to be at some future time its companions in the chase. When an obstinate bird is dealt with its appetite is excited, so as to render it more dependent; with this view it is made to swallow small pellets of tow mixed up with garlic and wormwood. These pellets have the effect of increasing its hunger; and the pleasure which it afterwards experiences in eating tends to attach it more closely to the individual who feeds it.
In a general way, after five or six days of restraint the Falcon is tamed, and the falconer can then proceed with the training, to which the former practices are nothing but preliminaries.