[606] Bi-murdan murdan kār-ī mī-kunad.
[607] There is no reason why she should be useless. I have had an intermewed saker of twelve or more moults that was still a first-class hubara hawk, and intermewed peregrines of ten moults that seldom failed to kill either heron or hubara.
[608] Bālābān-i fark͟h: fark͟h, pl. afrāk͟h, A., often means a nestling, but also, as here, (a hawk) in the immature plumage.
[609] Lit. “black-eyed or yellow-eyed”; siyāh-chashm and zard-chashm.
[610] In India the common kite is considered the most difficult quarry of all for the saker: only the saker is flown at it. The kite is very rare in Persia, except near Bushire.
[611] Bāsh-qanāt dādan: bāsh, T., “head,” and qanat, T., “wing.” This consists in holding a live bagged bird in the hand and getting the hawk to “bind” to it from the distance of a foot or so, or getting the hooded hawk to bind to it and then unhooding her: the hawk is of course rewarded either by a pigeon’s wing stealthily inserted under the train’s wing, or the train is killed and the hawk allowed to eat a little.
[612] Bālābān-i buzyūr.
[613] Majhūl.
[614] Dakl u būlī. In a note the author says dakl means dast-par, but as he elsewhere, page 123, note [523], uses dakl for “train” of a deer, this rendering appears inaccurate.
[615] The crane should not be dishevelled. In any case hawks quickly recognize a “train.” I had a young peregrine that, on taking its first wild heron, was badly injured by another hawk, and in consequence refused even to look at a wild heron. It would, however, always take bagged heron released in the jungle before the hood was removed. It also took a bagged common crane.