[748] Rag-i pāy-i ū, “tendon.”

[749] Mik͟hlab-i shikārī.

CHAPTER LVIII
FEATHERS PLUCKED OUT BY THE ROOT

Should anyone, out of enmity to you, break the wing- or tail-feathers of your hawk, you must match the broken feathers as far as possible with others, and “imp”[750] them. First “imp” them with a needle; then, if they break again, imp them by inserting a shaft[751] into the hollow quills. If they again break off at the root, close to the flesh, you can do nothing more.

On no account must you pluck out the tail- or flight-feathers by the root. Flight-feathers plucked out will never grow again; but tail-feathers, though they will grow again, will be defective in two points.[752] First, they will be weak and “withered,” and will probably break: possibly, too, some will not grow at all. Second, during the moult, the hawk will experience great difficulty in casting the re-grown feathers, and you may be constrained to pull them out again, and so on, year by year, your hawk being thus rendered foul and disfigured for ever.

If, through personal enmity or by some accident from a gazelle or a crane, it does so happen that a flight-feather gets plucked out, then:—Treatment: take the feather that has been plucked out and at once replace it in its socket,[753] and bind it firmly with silk to that primary-covert[754] that impends it. You must foul, with blood, the portion of the quill that goes into the flesh, and see, too, that it is pressed home into its exact place.[755] You must know that by Divine Agency every flight-feather has a short stout feather as a “supporter,”[756] called by Arabs a “key.”[754]

Do not after this fly the hawk for two or three days, i.e., not till the feather has set; and do not remove the silk binding for forty days. At the expiration of this period you can, if you like, remove the silk, but it is not necessary to do so. Fly your hawk regularly till the moulting season, but remove the silk before you set her down to moult. She will cast this replanted feather before any other, and the new one that will take its place will be smaller than its fellow in the other wing. In the second moult, however, there will be no difference.

Should the feathers that have been plucked out be lost, or should several days elapse since the injury occurred, then:—Treatment: put the hawk in a “sock,”[757] and wet the wing near the seat of injury, so that the down[758] is soaked. Very carefully search out the spot. The hole will have closed somewhat, and be too small to admit a full-sized feather; you must, therefore, plant a corresponding feather of a smaller size. Thus, if it is the second flight-feather of a female goshawk that is plucked out, you must plant the second flight-feather of a male; if of a male goshawk, then the corresponding feather of a female sparrow-hawk; if of a female sparrow-hawk, then the feather of a male sparrow-hawk, and so on. Well wet the down with luke-warm water, and place the end of the “artificial” feather in your mouth to soften it. When soaked, act as before, binding the feather to the “key,” etc., etc.

The sooner after the accident the artificial feather is planted the better, but the operation can be carried out with successful results even three or four months after the accident, that is, any time before the socket-hole has closed up and the feathers on each side of it have fallen inwards and “blinded” it.[759] This operation was invented by your humble servant, the writer.

Now the flight-feather of a hawk is to be compared to the tooth of a man. If, owing to the chucking of a horse’s head, or to a fall, or to other accident, a tooth gets knocked out of the head of a youth of ten or twenty years, if the tooth be at once replaced in its socket and bound to the teeth on each side of it, it will certainly take root again, though it will remain somewhat weaker than its neighbours; and will, on the approach of old age, when the powers decay and the teeth loosen, be the first to come away. Should, however, the tooth of that youth not be replaced, the teeth on either side will fall together inwards and so obliterate the gap that none can tell that there is a tooth missing. Hence the sooner you replace a plucked out feather the better.