[712] Dār filfil, “Piper Longum.”
[713] Dānak-i, a pea-grain in weight.
[714] The author seems to have confused “false moult” with “feather-canker,” but the two diseases are separate. In “false moult” the hawk casts newly grown feathers, and, as it were, recommences a second moult before she is out of the first, and so on. This disease is well known to Indian falconers, but no case has come under my direct notice. In “feather-canker,” or in one form of it, the hawk moults well and clean, but when flying to the lure one of its flight-feathers will make a whirring sound as though not set in the wing at the proper angle. In a few days this feather will break off at, or in, the flesh, and there will probably be a trace of blood. One by one every flight-feather will break off in this manner. In the only case I have seen, the hawk, a saker, had moulted perfectly and was apparently in the best of health. The disease attacked both wings and she lost every one of her flight-feathers.
CHAPTER LII
LICE[715]
The symptoms of lice are these: the feathers on the back of the neck stand erect, and the hawk is ever scratching her head with her foot and picking at her back and breast, with her beak: she is never at rest. Treatment: get some quick-silver and “kill”[716] it with vinegar; then apply it to a thread and cast the thread on the neck of the hawk, and the lice will be destroyed.[717] Item: take tobacco-water and mix therein a little salt, and apply the mixture to the back of the neck and to the loins, and she shall be free. Item: there is in Mazenderan a grass called kankarvāsh: pound some of this very fine and mix therein a little wine, and apply to the back of the neck and under the wings, and to every place where you know the lice collect and hold their councils. Apply this and the lice will instantly fall off. Item: place your hawk in the sun, and as soon as she is warmed, the lice will collect on the large broad feathers, three on each side, called by the Kurds yār māliq.[718] You can then remove the lice with scissors. Item: take Armenian bole,[719] country tobacco-leaf and good cigarette tobacco;[720] grind and mix. By means of a reed, blow this powder on to and into the feathers. Then place the hawk in the sun for a little, and the lice will disappear. Item: take some carded cotton-wool and twist it into a roll as thick as your finger, and at night cast it on your hawk’s neck and put her in a warm place. All the lice will collect on the wool. In the morning snip off the wool hastily and cast it away.
FOOTNOTES:
[715] Shipish or shupush.
[716] Bi-kush, a term of alchemy.
[717] Quick-silver is a well-known Indian remedy for lice. Women mix oil with the quick-silver. Indian falconers mix saliva with a little quick-silver in the palm of the hand, and then dab it on at night on the back of the hawk’s neck, etc., and under the wings. In the morning not a trace of the vermin will be found. Newly-trained sakers are invariably troubled with lice, but if so treated after they are “manned” (and will preen freely), they generally continue free—unless infected by another hawk. Peregrines in health, that bathe regularly, are rarely if ever troubled with lice.