Let your hawk eat her fill of the antelope-rat,
For where is the food that is better than that?
The flesh is particularly good about two or three months before Autumn,[653] that is, when your hawks are half-moulted, having three to four flight-feathers of each wing uncast. At this season the jerboa is very fat, and hawks find its flesh palatable.
The properties of the jerboa’s flesh are:—First: it keeps your hawks in perfect health; for, though the weather is hot, the flesh of the jerboa is cold. Rip open the belly of one newly killed and put your fingers inside; you will find that, unlike all other beasts and birds, which, when newly killed, are hot inside, the jerboa is cold. Second: every feather of your hawk that draws its nourishment from the flesh of the jerboa will be strong and pliant, and will last till the next moult without fear of breaking; for such feathers have the pliability of a spring. I say this from experience; for I once saw a gazelle, when the bālābān bound to its head, trip and fall, and roll over and over with the hawk for twenty or thirty paces. The hawk’s wing- and tail-feathers were badly bent and bruised.[654] However, I restored them all with the help of warm water; not one was broken. Third: the fur makes your hawk cast twice daily. (If you can feed your hawk twice daily, morning and afternoon, on the jerboa with its fur, so much the better; if not, feed her on this flesh once, in the afternoon). Fourth: at the end of the moult there is a very fine and powdery bloom on the feathers; it is as though a delicate powder had been sprinkled on them. Fifth: it is an excellent tonic for a sick hawk, as, please God, I will explain later on.
FOOTNOTES:
[650] This is not the experience of Indian falconers. In a wild state peregrines moult late; doubtless the duties of maternity retard moulting. I have twice caught healthy haggard peregrine “falcons” at Christmas that still had an unshed flight-feather.
[651] Properly yarbūʿ.
[652] Mūsh-i k͟hānagī: mūsh is either a rat or a mouse; however, rats, except field rats (jerboas, etc.) are not found in Persia. (Doubtless ship rats are found in the ports.)
[653] The Persian Autumn is supposed to commence in the end of September.