[534] I know of two instances in India of a saker trained to hare taking a very small fawn of a “black buck.”
[535] The author (vide next paragraph but one) means seven or eight altogether.
[536] Bi-qānūn-i maẕkūr du si āhū barā-yash mī-kushand.
CHAPTER XXXVI
TRAINING THE “SHĀHĪN”[539]
Now, my son, let me instruct thee in the training of the Shāhīn so that thy falcon may in the field excel those of other sportsmen, and thou thyself be acknowledged a master. First, thou must thyself be a shāhīn, and thy horse, too, must be like one.
Falconers have compared the Shāhīn to a rifle bullet, and what an expert marksman expects from his weapon you must expect from your falcon; she must not miss when cast at quarry within her compass.
Now know that the nature of the Shāhīn somewhat resembles that of the Goshawks; it does not require many “hand-birds” and “trains.”[540] Amongst falcons[541] it is the hero.
Should a young[542] shāhīn come into your possession, set her on a perch, and feed and fatten her[543] up till the rising of Canopus.[544] Then slightly reduce her food for a day or two, just enough to induce her to step off her perch on to your fist. About half an hour after dark, fit her with a soft part-worn hood[545] that cannot, by hurting her, make her hood-shy; for hood-shyness, in a shāhīn, is a vice that can, by no manner of means, be cured.[546] If the back of the hood be too tight, her ears will be hurt, and she will develop the incurable disease of “ear-ache.”
Every half hour or so, unhood her near the lamp, stroke her on the head and breast, and then replace her on the perch. Then again take her up and hood her, and continue doing this for three or four hours. After that remove her hood and place her on her perch in the place that she is accustomed to sleep in every night. Early next morning take her up, hood her, and give her a small quantity of meat washed in warm water, and then set her on her perch till mid-day. After mid-day take her on the fist and carry her in the shade. At sun-down give her a few pigeon’s or chicken’s feathers washed in warm water, so that she may “cast” early and rid herself of glut and slime.[547] As soon as she has lost some flesh, procure a lure made of the wings of a common crane, and firmly bind a piece of meat on to it. If she jumps to this from the falconer’s fist, even the length of her jesses, it is sufficient.
It is not necessary to teach the shāhīn or the eyess saker to recognize its name.[548] Especially is such teaching improper in the case of the passage shāhīn; for if you have taught the latter to know its name like a passage saker, and should call her by it when she is hooded, she will make her carrier impotent by tearing at his glove,[549] or by “bating,” or hanging head downwards with her claws convulsively fixed in his glove. It is sufficient to teach the shāhīn to come to the luring cry of coo coo.[550]