The earth and the sea, the Heavens and you.
At any rate this hawk of yours has been perfected in every part of her training. Perhaps, too, she is fast. If, as she leaves your fist, she at once take the “chukor” in the air, on no account feed her up: give her only the brain. When by this act of hers you have discovered that she is fast, go and put up another “chukor.” If it rise close to you, let it get away a little distance before you cast off your hawk so that the partridge may not be taken, but be “put into” a bush. Now go with a very little meat in your hand, and dismount near the bush. Go very gently and take your hawk on your fist. Set on your dog[342] and make it put up the partridge out of the bush. As soon as the partridge rises, cast off your hawk. However she take it, whether at once in the air, or at a distance before it can “put in,” go slowly up to her and cut the “chukor’s” throat. If you want to fly your hawk again next day, give her one thigh, the heart, and the liver together with feathers as “casting.” If you don’t intend to fly her next day, give her in addition one side of the breast.[343] While feeding her, call the dog to your side that she may become accustomed to it.
If your hawk be a tiercel,[344] one thigh of the “chukor” with the head and neck and their bones will be a sufficient feed.
Now let us suppose that you are out with your friends on that ten days’ hawking expedition and that your hawk has daily killed five or six partridges without misbehaving herself, and that you have duly fed her up after the last flight, at the place she put in; do not suppose that now, after she is thoroughly entered to quarry,[345] you must necessarily during these ten days act so every day. Should you, for instance, now prefer to stay at home one day, lure her from a distance; but should you take the field, then at the last flight, when she has taken her partridge, give her the head and brain to eat. On the spot where she has killed or “put in,” place her on a stone and go yourself a long way off, and then lure her to you and feed her up. She has learnt how to kill partridges, and your present action is to prevent her forgetting the lure.
Let us suppose that the first day your new goshawk takes the partridge in the air you feed her up on it. Well, the next time you go out hawking, she will, on the partridge rising, try her best;[346] if she take it in the air, well and good, but if not, she will either return to you or give up; she will not continue to chase the partridge till she puts it in.[347] Many a good hawk have I seen spoilt like this through the gross ignorance of the falconer. A hawk cannot always take a partridge in the air: it should therefore learn to follow and “put in.”[347]
Though I have warned you once, I warn you again; do not go hawking chickens and house-pigeons,[348] for this is a mistake.
The goshawk falcon[349] is in every respect better than the tiercel. I have proved this by experience. Many falconers say that the tiercel is faster and more adroit, but these do not know that a hundred tiercels cannot do what one “falcon”[349] does. It appears to them that the tiercel is faster, because he is smaller and moves his wings with greater rapidity. But the falcon is larger and longer, and can, from the summits of high hills make a partridge “put in.” The tiercel cannot do this; it gives up half way. There is no question but that the falcon is a hundred degrees better than the tiercel,[350] either for quarry as small as the Quail, or for quarry as large as the Common Crane and the Great Bustard.[351]
My son, if you want to be counted by keepers of short-winged hawks a past master in the art, and to reap a full enjoyment from the sport, then train your goshawks,[352] sparrow-hawks, and shikras, etc., as I have described.
You should try to finish your day’s hawking before noon, so that you, your horse, your hawk, and your hound, may all rest till the next day. Hawking prolonged into the afternoon[353] is bad, because eagles and other birds of prey are then in search of their evening meal, and they will come down on you even from afar off. Should you lose your hawk in the afternoon, you have little time to search for her and also reach your house before nightfall. Should you not lose her, but manage to add a few more partridges to your bag, it is difficult to know the proper amount of food to give: the Winter nights are long and cold, and if you give her but a small feed she will lose condition;[354] if through fear of the cold you give a full feed, she, tired though she be, will not sleep; or if she sleep, she will not “put over”[355] nor digest[356] properly, and next day your friends will start off hawking before your hawk has cast[357] or got her appetite. These are the reasons I do not approve of hawking in the afternoon. If your friends force you to go out hawking with them in the afternoon, feed up your hawk after her first flight.
Do not overfly your hawk. She should fly no more than she can fly with delight to herself. Two or three flights are sufficient, and I consider it unlawful (ḥarām) to give her more than five flights.[358] If she be flown only two or three times, she will remain keen on her quarry.[359] This is the way to treat all goshawks and sparrow-hawks. Know that all these sporting-birds are naturally good, and the Wise God has created them all for the pleasure and delight of man; but it rests with the falconer to make or mar them. Except in two particulars, their good or bad points are the result of training. First, the falconer, however good, cannot make slow hawks fast, nor vice versâ. Second, he cannot increase the courage of his hawk. Now, although I have seen it stated in works on falconry[360] that to increase a hawk’s courage you should feed her for three days on pigeon’s flesh steeped in wine,[361] when if she have previously taken only partridges she will now take even cranes, yet this is not the case; the statement is falsehood, pure and unalloyed, for I have tested it: my hawk took no cranes—that was of minor importance—but what she did do was to fall sick. It is God, not the falconer, that bestows swiftness and courage. In these two matters the falconer is powerless.