God gave the hawk her courage and her speed,
Can’st thou thyself increase what He Himself decreed?
For instance, if ten horses be trained for a race,[362] one will win, and whenever you race them the same one will win—unless, of course, some accident happen, or the horse is out of sorts. So, too, with greyhounds and other animals. In short, courage and powers of flight have nothing whatever to do with the falconer: for these the Grace of God is necessary.
Now, first you must train your hawk to come eagerly to the fist from any spot where your voice reaches her. Further, you must not encourage her to become so bold and familiar with dogs that she lay hands on them;[363] for it may happen that one day when you have cast her at a partridge, a fox or a jackal crosses her path: if she has acquired a habit of binding to dogs she will fasten on to the fox or jackal, and so suffer instant destruction. Neither must you allow her to be too bold with small children, lest one day, while you are absent, your small boy come to her on her perch and she seize him, and none be there to hear his cries, and so he be blinded or killed. Both these accidents have happened frequently, i.e., a goshawk has killed a child, and a jackal a goshawk. This evil habit seldom exists in passage hawks,[364] qizil, or t̤arlān; it is generally the eyess qizil[365] that acts like this, and hence falconers are not very fond of the eyess.[365] In short, your hawk should stand somewhat in fear of all dogs except your own hound; it is better for her to remain in fear of strange hounds that might injure her, and of the dogs of the wandering tribes.[366]
Secondly, your hawk should make the partridge “put in” (or take it just as it is going to “put in”),[367] and then after circling round the covert two or three times take stand on the top of the covert till you arrive, when she should leave her perch and come to your fist. She should not fly off and leave the place where the partridge “put in,” else by the time you have followed her and recovered her, the partridge will have escaped.
Such is hawking with short-winged hawks in hilly country, that is, hawking “chukor” and “seesee”[368]. As for hawking in flat country, a goshawk will there take duck, geese, common cranes,[369] great bustards, ravens, hubara, stone-plovers,[370] saker falcons,[371] and even imperial sand-grouse,[372] quail, [373] pin-tailed sand-grouse,[372] and ruddy shieldrakes.[373] All this quarry—(pheasants[374] and black partridges[375] are excepted)—she can take at the first or second dash[376] only, otherwise she will fail in doing so.
If you come across any of this quarry in open country and desire to fly at it, then, if your hawk, by crouching and resting its breast on your hand and becoming rigid,[377] shows that she has a natural inclination for it,[378] be sure you take notice of the direction of the wind. With your hawk’s breast towards the wind,[379] gallop your horse towards the quarry. The horse must indeed move, but you must so hold and keep your fist that your hawk does not open her wings; for she must, while the quarry has still a foot on the ground, quit your fist like a bullet; she will then take the quarry in the air before it has got away ten yards. On no account cast your hawk off with her back to the wind, for this is dangerous. First, by casting her off back to the wind, her loins will be strained; and leaving your fist uncollectedly, she will fail to reach the quarry, and your falconer friends will jeer at you and at your action. Should you even manage to cast her off so close that it is as though you are giving the quarry into her hand, she and the quarry, when she “binds”[380] to it, will fall to the ground (i.e., if the wind be at all strong), and the quarry will, breaking away from her, not again be overtaken. Should your hawk even bind so firmly that, on falling, the quarry does not break away, still she will suffer for that folly, and will get injured or fall sick. It is the habit of all birds of prey, when within the distance of five or six spans of their quarry, to cease beating their wings, in order to get ready to seize it. Now if you cast off your hawk, breast to the wind, even though she cease to beat her wings for the last three or four feet of her flight, still by the help of the impetus gained by the cast, by your horse’s galloping, and by the beating of her own wings, she will reach and “bind” to the quarry and sportsmen will compliment you and commend your hawk. If, however, you cast her off up-wind of the quarry, the moment when, according to her nature, she ceases beating her wings on nearing the quarry, the wind will strike her loins and overturn her; and she will therefore fail to “bind.” Hence it is a law never to fly a hawk with her back to the wind: to do so is botchery. When, however, hawking partridges in the hills with a goshawk, or when hawking gazelles in the plains with a saker, the rule allows of exceptions. In the former case your hawk is cast off from a height, and with the aid of gravity[381] follows the partridge till it “puts in;” in the hills, too, the force of the wind is broken. In the latter case you have no choice but to fly your chark͟h or bālābān at gazelle from up-wind, for as soon as the falcon stoops and the greyhound arrives, the gazelle has no choice but to put its nose into the wind and to flee windwards.[382] If the wind is strong, the falcon, flying against the wind, will probably not overtake it; but if she does make sufficient headway to overtake it—which she may do with great difficulty—she will, while stooping and recovering and again rising high, lose ground and fall about a thousand paces behind. In the meantime the greyhounds are too blown[383] to seize the gazelle. For these reasons the gazelle must be flown at from up-wind;[384] this will also be explained later, in the chapter on the Chark͟h.
These observations do not apply to hawking chukor and seesee, for these “put in.” Still, it is better to fly at even these, from up-wind, whether in the hills or in the plains, for then the advantage is with the hawk.
When your hawk is thoroughly entered to chukor and seesee,[385] and never fails you, you should fly her in the plains at some of the quarry mentioned above; for flying a hawk in the plains, after she has been thoroughly entered to chukor and seesee, has several special advantages, though these are not commonly known to falconers. Many falconers fancy that if you fly your hawk at large quarry in the plains, thoroughly accustoming her to it, she will not thereafter take chukor and seesee. This is an error. Now a goshawk can only take duck and hubara and such-like quarry of the plains, at the first or second dash: if not taken at once such quarry will speedily outstrip the hawk. Therefore the hawk must, on level open ground, fly her fastest and strive her utmost at the beginning, and this habit soon becomes second nature. If a man wrestle with a famed wrestler, thereafter novices and ordinary people are to him as nothing.[386] So, too, it is with a hawk flown at large quarry. Even at the commencement, partridges are a mere nothing to her; but when, after acquiring the habit of swift flight by being flown in the plains, she is again flown in the hills with the additional advantage of gravity, her swiftness will astonish you; it will truly be something to see. You must, of course, not weary her by overflying, for by overflying you make her stale.[387] A second advantage derived from flying her in the plains, is that she necessarily sees a large number of buzzards, vultures, kites, eagles, and such-like birds, and so, becoming speedily familiarized to them, ceases to be in terror of them.
A third advantage is, that when she fails to take the quarry and “falls at marke,”[388] she will, on your riding up, readily rise and take stand on your fist, for goshawks have a natural dislike to resting on a flat surface; they love to perch on trees, hillocks, or rocks.