If the falconer has the patience, this last method is, for the following reasons, the best. First; the hawk, when taken out of the moult, having not forgotten the six or seven fawns she killed in the Spring, will, when flown in the Autumn, single out the smallest quarry. Second; the long rest will have set and hardened her young bones so that she will not be liable to get swollen feet.[537] Third; she will have become domesticated, will have learnt wisdom, and will not be liable to get lost.
Do not be in the least afraid that your hawk, having been entered to fawns, will not tackle a horned buck[538] or a full-grown gazelle. If she is keen, you can fly her at two or three bucks that happen to be together without a female. These three bucks have not been cast in one mould: one is certain to be rather smaller than the others, and this one your hawk will single out. If you find a single buck, let it be even as big as the foal of an ass, she will tackle it all right. But if, one day, you fly her at an old buck, and the hounds not arriving she wears herself out and gets jostled or injured, you may rest assured that in the second moult she will not tackle an old buck. She will still, however, take does, or small young bucks that are only one or two years old.
A bālābān that has been trained by this last method is certainly better than one trained by either of the preceding methods.
FOOTNOTES:
[528] Rām kardan, “to tame, to man.”
[529] Baʿd az garm-i t̤alab shudan.
[530] —t̤ā īnki mag͟hz-i ustuk͟hwān-ash siyāh bi-shavad; an unusual idiom.
[531] Naw-rūz, the Persian New Year’s Day about the 21st March.
[532] “And make it play with the head:” bāzī mī-dihand.
[533] Dakl.