THE

BĀZ-NĀMA-YI NĀṢIRĪ

A PERSIAN TREATISE ON FALCONRY

The author of this work was Ḥusām^u ’d-Dawlah Taymūr Mīrzā, [1] one of the nineteen sons of Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā,[1] Farmān-Farmā, the Governor of the Province of Fārs, and one of the sons of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, Qājār.

On the death of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, in A.H. 1250 (A.D. 1834), general confusion prevailed: the claimants to the Crown were many. The details of these claims and the actions of the various aspirants to establish them are exceedingly complicated and difficult to follow. The old Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān first mounted the throne at Teheran. His nephew the young Muḥammad Mīrzā was then Governor of Tabrīz, and his troops had not been paid for some time. However, receiving pecuniary support from the English ambassador, and moral support from the Russian, he marched on Teheran (putting out the eyes of a brother or two en route), and was met by the army (hastily paid up to date, and even in advance), of the Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān. The moving spirit in Muḥammad Mīrzā’s army appears to have been an Englishman named Lynch, who, nominally in command of the artillery, virtually managed what cannot be better described than as “the whole show.” The camp of the Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān awoke in the morning to discover that, during the night, their General had gone over to the enemy; and that Mr. Lynch, having pointed four big guns at their camp, was haranguing them from his position, and exhorting them to go home. His arguments appeared reasonable. Part of the Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān’s army crossed over to Mr. Lynch, and part returned home. “In a moment, this fine army was disbanded, scattered like the stars of the Great Bear, every man going to his own place.”

Muḥammad Mīrzā now entered Teheran without the slightest opposition, and his uncle the Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān, “in the greatest despondency,” placed the crown on his head and handed him the state jewels. Muḥammad Shāh (no longer Mīrzā) then proceeded to [xii]despatch the Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān and most of his uncles and brothers to the dreaded fortress of Ardabīl.

Shayk͟h ʿAlī Mīrzā, Shayk͟h^u ’l-Mulūk, “though he had none of the requisites of sovereignty except a band of music,” was another prince that made an even more feeble bid for the throne. He was then Governor of Tūy Sarkān. Royal governors, in Persia, have bands that play in the evening; but a morning band is a prerogative of the Shāh. Shayk͟h ʿAlī Mīrzā ordered his band to play in the morning as well as in the evening, and thought that by so doing he had become Shāh. However, on receiving the unexpected news that Muḥammad Shāh was in Teheran, he tendered his submission, and was soon packed off to join the “caravan” at Ardabīl.

Ḥaydar Qulī Mīrzā, Ṣāḥib Ik͟htiyār, another royal prince, also made a burlesque attempt to obtain sovereignty. His own adherents split into two parties, quarrelled amongst themselves, and then at a moment’s notice turned him out of the city of which he was Governor. On his way to Isfahan he fell off his horse, and was carried into that city in a prostrate condition. Once or twice, after this, he flits across the page of history as a fugitive from the wrath of Muḥammad Shāh.

It must not be supposed that all this time the Farmān-Farmā, the father of our author and the eldest living son of the late Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, was idle. He seems to have been popular in Fārs, for Shīrāz was kind enough to offer him the crown of Persia. He induced his brother the Shujāʿ^u ’s-Salt̤anah, the Governor of Kirmān, to have coins struck in his name there, and also the K͟hut̤bah read in his name at the Friday prayers. He further sat on a throne in Shīrāz. A few days later, news of the arrival of Muḥammad Shāh in Teheran and of the abdication of the Z̤ill^u ’s-Sult̤ān, reached him. The Shujāʿ^u ’s-Salt̤anah, who had arrived at Shīrāz from Kirmān, was then placed in command of an army, and under him were two of the Farmān-Farmā’s sons, Najaf Qulī Mīrzā in command of the Cavalry, and Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā in command of the Infantry. The destination of the army appears to have been Isfahan, the inhabitants of which, it was hoped, would declare for the Farmān-Farmā. The season was winter. The second march was commenced in a storm of snow and rain. The plains became a lake: the hill passes were blocked by snow: men and horses died: guns sank in the mud: property was lost. Rations, too, ran short, and[xiii] the country had lately been visited by locusts. Even proper guides were wanting. But worst of all, one march from Isfahan, Mr. Lynch was discovered blocking the way. In the night, three of Mr. Lynch’s artillerymen “deserted” to the Shīrāz camp, and tampered with its artillery. In the skirmish next morning, all the artillery horses of the Shīrāz camp went bodily over to Mr. Lynch. The remainder of the Shīrāz army scattered and disappeared, got entangled in the mountains, and retraced its steps to find Mr. Lynch with some artillery blocking one path, and a Mr. “Shir”—apparently another Englishman—blocking another.

The Shīrāz Commander-in-Chief, with his two nephews, and presumably a remnant of the army, eventually slunk back into Shīrāz, in a miserable plight from hunger and exhaustion. A grand Council was then held, and everybody talked, and the Farmān-Farmā listened to all in turn. One thing seems quite certain, no one did anything. Strange rumours now began to reach Shīrāz of weird Turkish troops that spoke no Persian, and were commanded by an ubiquitous Englishman. The merchants, panic-stricken, fled with their property. The city people revolted, and seized some towers; while the troops, of course, deserted to the other side. A faithful eunuch then informed the Farmān-Farmā that he had met some of the city people on their way to seize the gates, and that a plan had been concocted for capturing the Farmān-Farmā with all his relations, adding that the delay of one minute meant the loss of everything. Still the Farmān-Farmā shilly-shallied: still he maintained his attitude of keeping “one foot in the stirrup and one on the ground,” giving ear, first to the advice of his son to flee, and then to the advice of his brother the Shujāʿ^u ’s-Salt̤anah to stay. The result was, that the two elder princes were taken. The Farmān-Farmā was deported to Teheran, where he was honourably treated but speedily died. The Shujāʿ^u ’s-Salt̤anah was carried to Teheran, deprived of his sight en route, and then sent to enliven the family party at Ardabīl. The princes, Najaf Qulī Mīrzā, Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā, Taymūr Mīrzā the author of this Bāz-Nāma, with Nawāb Ḥājiya the mother of Najaf Qulī Mīrzā, and three more princes, brothers or half-brothers, narrowly effected their escape, and a month later reached Bag͟hdād in safety.

At that time relations between the English and Persian Courts were extremely friendly. The eldest prince, Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā, with[xiv] his brothers Najaf Qulī Mīrzā, and Taymūr Mīrzā our author, started for England to obtain the mediation of William IV., reaching London viâ Damascus and Beyrout in the summer of 1836. Their journey from Damascus to Beyrout was as feckless and mismanaged as their expedition to Isfahan.

For four months the princes were a popular feature of London Society, and during that time succeeded in losing their hearts several times. Then, as they had obtained the object of their journey, Lord Palmerston having arranged matters to their satisfaction, they returned to Bag͟hdād and exile.

Najaf Qulī Mīrzā wrote an account in Persian of the events that occurred on the death of their grandfather Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, and of their own adventures in consequence, and he also kept a diary of their tour to England and back.

Asʿad Yaʿqūb K͟hayyāt̤,[2] a Syrian Christian who had accompanied the princes to Europe as Dragoman, secured this MS. in Bag͟hdād; but on his journey back to Syria he was held up by Bedouins and deprived of that portion of the MS. that treated of the actual flight of the princes from Shīrāz and of the arrest of their father—the illiterate Arabs mistaking these pages for the Holy Qurʾān. The remainder of the journal was translated by him into English, and under the title of a “Journal of a Residence in England and of a Journey from and to Syria, of their Royal Highnesses Reeza Koolee Meerza, Najaf Koolee Meerza, and Taymoor Meerza of Persia,” was printed in London for private circulation only. The present tragi-comic page of Persian history has been compiled, partly from this narrative, and partly from Persian sources.

Some twenty-eight years after the bid for sovereignty, and fourteen years after the death of their cousin Muḥammad Shāh, the two princes Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā and Taymūr Mīrzā started from Bag͟hdād to revisit their native land. Who knows what secret hopes they cherished, what dreams they dreamt of royal favour? In a few pathetic words, our author, in his Preface, informs us that, at the second stage of their journey, the truth of the sacred text, ‘And ye know not in what land death shall overtake you,’ was forcibly revealed to him: his brother suddenly sickened and died.

[xv]

Taymūr Mīrzā was well received by Nāṣir^u ’d-Dīn Shāh, whose constant companion he became in all sporting expeditions. He died in A.H. 1291 (A.D. 1874); I am told, in Teheran.

In Persia, and round Bag͟hdād, Taymūr Mīrzā’s name is still a household word. “Ah,” exclaim the Persians when hawking is mentioned, “if Taymūr Mīrzā were only here.”

His treatise on Falconry, of which the present book is a translation, was composed in A.H. 1285 (A.D. 1868) and was originally lithographed in Teheran. A second, and perhaps a third, edition was lithographed in Bombay, a few pages on pigeons and game-fowl, apparently written in India, being added as an Appendix.

The present translation has been made from a copy of the original Teheran edition to which marginal notes have been added by a former owner. For the versification I am indebted to the assistance of poetical friends.

D. C. P.

[xvii]

Let us embroider this Treatise on Falconry with the design of the Praise of the All-Sufficient; and let us exalt our Pen by a votive offering of praise to the Great Fashioner, in the path of whose worship the wings of those falcon-like Pure Spirits of the Saints are spread wide open,[3] like as the portals of His Mercy are opened wide in the faces of those that truly love Him. Let us also praise the matchless beauty and grandeur and perfection of that high-soaring Bird,[4] the robe of whose being God adorned with this sacred verse: “And was at the distance of two bow-strings, or even less.”[5]

We further extol the Family, the Humā[6] of whose noble spirit soars aloft on the pinions of sure belief and true knowledge, winging its way to the eyrie of union with the Eternal Phœnix:—

[xviii]

Thus says this writer, His Royal Highness Prince Taymūr Mīrzā,[8] son of the Blessed[9] Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā, Farmān-Farmā,[10] and grandson of the Blessed[9] King Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh, Qājār (whom Allah has clothed in the Robes of Light):—At the beginning of the reign of King Muḥammad Shāh (the Receiver of God’s Pardon[11] and a Dweller in Paradise), in the year of the Flight 1250 (a thousand blessings and praises on Him that performed it[12]) I with my brothers Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā[8], Nāqib^u ’l-Iyāla, and Najaf Qulī Mīrzā, Wālī, both my elders, and Shāh-ruk͟h Mīrzā, and Iskandar Mīrzā, younger than the writer, departed from the Province of Fārs on a pilgrimage to the Sacred Karbalā[13]—best of blessings and perfect benedictions on its silent[14] inmates! After a residence of some months in that Celestial City, I, as God and Fate decreed, with my brother Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā and Najaf Qulī Mīrzā took a journey to Europe, returning to the Holy Places[15] after the space of a year and a half. By the grace of God we spent the long space of thirty years, in peace and freedom, in those Abodes of Peace, visiting the Holy Shrines and hawking and hunting in their environs.

When the throne of the Kingdom of Īrān—which God protect from the changes and vicissitudes of Time—was adorned and illuminated by the splendour of the auspicious accession of His[xix] Majesty Shāh Nāṣir^u ’d-Dīn, a Jamshīd in rank, the shade of God’s Grace and His Blessing to men, the Divinely-aided, a King and the son of Kings; and when the fame of the Justice and the echo of the Clemency of this peerless Monarch spread and resounded throughout the world, nay reached even to the high oratories of Heaven’s Dome, I, your humble slave, with Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā, left Bag͟hdād, the Abode of Peace,[16] in the year of the Flight 1279, on a pilgrimage to Holy Meshed, in order to kiss the sacred shrine of the Eighth Imām,—the blessings of God Almighty on him, his honoured forefathers, and his descendants the Leaders of men!

In Kirmānshāh his pre-destined death overtook Riẓā Qulī Mīrzā, in the Fort known as Ḥājī Karīm, one of the stages on our journey; and in accordance with the passage, “All that breathes shall taste of death,” he passed away, and the hidden mystery of, “No living thing knoweth in what land it shall die” was manifested to us.

When the bird of his spirit spread its wings and soared to the eyrie of Rest we despatched his bier to the Holy City of Najaf[17] (thousands of blessings on him that has sanctified it) where was his dwelling-place and ancestral home, so that he might there be buried with his fathers, while I, alone, with my burden of grief continued on my way to the most Sacred City.[18]

When I was blessed by the pilgrimage to Haẓrat-i ʿAbd^u ’l-ʿAz̤īm[19]—Peace and Honour be to him—the intense heat had already set in, and His Majesty and his Court were moving to the summer residence at Shimrānāt. Certain well-wishers of His [xx]Majesty and of the State informed him of my circumstances. Since the Creator of Existence, He who has made the heights and the depths, has decreed for every low estate a high estate, and for every grief a joy, and for every disgrace an honour, and for every pain a cure, the Royal mind was inspired to appoint Dūst ʿAlī K͟hān, the Minister of Public Works, to summon this attached slave to the Presence. So, according to Royal Mandate, I drove with the Minister in his carriage to Nayāvarān,[20] where the Royal Camp then was. After a short wait in the shade of the tent we were honoured by admittance to the sun-like Presence of the King—May our souls be his sacrifice! Such kindness he showed and so wide did he open the doors of his favour and kingly condescension, that what I had heard was but a thousandth part of the reality—as it were but a handful as a sample of an ass-load. I exclaimed:—

He spoke on various topics and strung the pearls of kingly words—and kings’ words are the kings of words—on the string of discourse. I too, his slave, according to my mean ability, presented my poor contribution to the conversation, which at last turned on sport. The Shadow of God (may our souls be his sacrifice) is an expert of experts in all sports, but especially in shooting. I have never seen or heard of his equal in shooting, either on foot, or off a galloping horse. For example, one day in the Kūh-i Shahristānak, I and Mahdī Qulī K͟hān the G͟hulām bachcha-bāshī, and Āqā Kushī K͟hān the gun-keeper, were sitting with him behind a stone—Muṣt̤afā Qulī K͟hān the Mīrshikār[21] with several other[xxi] rifles having made a circuit to drive the herd of wild sheep within range of the king’s rifle—when the herd suddenly turned aside and made off. Five three-year old rams that had not scented the danger came fearlessly on towards the stone behind which His Majesty and the rest of us were crouching. His Majesty had with him a double-barrelled gun for slugs, and three rifles. When the rams arrived within forty paces, His Majesty fired the gun and brought down one with one barrel, and a second with the second barrel. The three remaining rushed down the hill. His Majesty seized the rifles with his auspicious hand, and by the will of the One God brought down all three head one after the other:—

Now only an expert shot knows at what ranges to fire five successive and successful shots at a fleeing herd.

True it is that kings are the shadow of God and able to accomplish all by the help of their Master.

Many other feats, too, like this I’ve seen, up till now, the year 1285[24] (of the Flight).

Sixty-four years of my life have now passed, all spent in hunting and shooting. I have had no hobby but sport, no recreation but it.

This slave of the King’s Court, Taymūr, desired that like the ant he should present his offering to the Court of the Solomon of the [xxii]Age,[25] that is, compose a treatise on Falconry and its branches, and on the various species of hawks and their treatment in health and disease.

Although the old Falconers have written treatises on this subject, still in my humble opinion those old writers were by no means experts in their science and should not be classed as masters in their art. I, therefore, thought of myself writing on the subject and leaving a memento for all lovers of the sport, whether tyros or experts. When these are seated by a stream, refreshed and rested after the morning’s sport, I hope they will recall the writer in their prayers and pass over the shortcomings of his work.

I have honoured my book with the auspicious name of His Majesty the King, and have named it the Bāz-Nāma-yi Nāṣirī and have divided it into several bābs.[26]

[xxiii]

Part I
THE YELLOW-EYED BIRDS OF PREY

CHAPTER I
ON THE SHORT-WINGED HAWKS USED IN FALCONRY

The Birds of Prey are divided into two great divisions, the “Yellow-eyed” and the “Black-eyed,” these being again sub-divided into numerous species.

We will first treat of the Yellow-eyed Division.

T̤ug͟hral [Crested Goshawk?]—The first species worthy of note is the T̤ug͟hral.[27] During my many wanderings I have searched diligently for this species, but in vain, and am, therefore, unable to describe it from personal knowledge. There is a current tradition, that a single specimen was once brought to Persia from China,[28] and presented as a curiosity to King Bahrām-i Gūr,[29] who treasured it greatly and guarded it jealously. One sad day, when the king was out hawking, the t̤ug͟hral suddenly took to “soaring” and was quickly lost to the sight of the disconsolate monarch. His retinue were soon scattered in every direction in search of the [3]missing hawk, and the king was left almost alone, being attended by a few only of the royal favourites. Bahrām-i Gūr and his party also took up the search; and wandering far and wide, at length happened on a large and shady garden, where they alighted. The bewildered owner of the garden advanced exclaiming:—

On being questioned about the lost hawk he replied, “What a T̤ug͟hral may be, I know not, but not two hours since a hawk with bells and a jewelled ‘halsband,’[31] took stand in a tree of this very garden; but taking fright at my attempt to secure it, it flew off and settled in that grove yonder.” Bahrām was overjoyed at this clue, which enabled him to recover his lost favourite.[32]

From this reference to a “halsband” and bells, and to the t̤ug͟hral’s habit of sitting on trees, the author concludes that this unknown species belongs to the yellow-eyed division of the birds of prey.

Three species.—[The author now describes three races of goshawk, which he distinguishes by the names of Tīqūn; T̤arlān; and Qizil:[33] each of these three he sub-divides into varieties, only distinguishable from each other by slight differences in colouring, in marking, or in size. The first-named species is the white[4] goshawk; the second is that variety or race of the common goshawk that is caught after migration into Persia; while the third is the local race that breeds in the country.

After hazarding a conjecture that the white goshawks[34] are not a true species like the T̤arlān and Qizil, but are either albinos, or else accidental varieties produced by the pairing, for one or more generations, of two exceptionally light specimens of the common goshawk, the author proceeds to describe a pure white variety of the Tīqūn, which, he says, is known to the people of Turkistan by the name of Kāfūrī.[35] He remarks that he has caught albino specimens of the Saker Falcon, and has further observed albinos of the Shāhīn, “piebald crow,”[36] peacock, sparrow, sparrow-hawk, pin-tailed sand-grouse, chukor, hoopoe, English merlin, kākulī lark, and common crane. As regards the Kāfūrī, he states his opinion that it is the offspring of albino T̤arlāns that happen to have paired for two generations. He continues:—]

White Goshawk or Tīqūn-i kāfūrī.—The female of this variety of Tīqūn is noted for its large size, the male on the contrary for being extremely small. The head, neck, back, and breast are totally devoid of markings, the plumage being white as driven snow.[37] In the immature bird the eyes have only a slightly reddish tinge, but after the first moult their hue generally deepens and turns to a ruby-red.[38] The claws and beak, though frequently white, are more often a light grey, while the cere is greenish.

[5]

[6]

I remember having once seen a “cast”[39] of this variety—male and female—in the possession of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh[40] (now a resident of Paradise), both of which were exceptionally fine performers in the field.

The people of Turkistan, who are highly skilled in the art of training goshawks, call this variety lāziqī.[41]

It is commonly believed by falconers and bird-catchers, that in the early spring, when the female goshawk is desirous of the attentions of a male, she utters loud and plaintive cries, which attract to her many species of birds. From these she selects a male of a species different from herself,[42] and the result of this union is a diversiform progeny. However, the kāfūrī or lāziqī variety is the offspring of two white parents.

The following circumstance lends some colouring of truth to this quaint belief:—

Some years ago a hawk of this species was brought from Russia and presented as a curiosity to the late Shāh, who, in turn, bestowed it on Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā,[43] Governor of the Province of Fārs. The Governor (now in the abode of the Blessed) forwarded it to me—the contemptible. It must have been a bird of four or five moults, when it came into the possession of this slave. After infinite pains I succeeded in taking with it one solitary chukor,[44] and that, too, a bird harried and worn out by another hawk. It had a very villainous and scurvy disposition. The plumage of this hawk, an unusually large female, was peculiar, in that its feathers were alternately snow-white and raven-black; the claws and beak were of the colour of mother-of-pearl, and the eyes were[7] a reddish yellow. I feel confident her albino mother had mated with a raven, and that this spurious half-caste was the result of the union. There is some truth in the statements of the bird-catchers.

The above description is given, as it seems in some measure to support the stories of the bird-catchers. Sure and certain knowledge, however, rests with God.

Goshawk (T̤arlān).—There are three varieties of T̤arlān, the dark, the light, and the tawny. The last two are common, but though tractable and easily reclaimed,[45] they are not good at large quarry. The dark variety that has a reddish tinge, is universally acknowledged to be the best, and I have myself taken with it[8] common crane and great bustard.[46] The colouring should be very dark, with a tinge of red in it; though this variety may be sullen and self-willed, it is also hardy and keen, and, once thoroughly reclaimed, will be as docile and obedient as any falconer could desire.

Local Race of Goshawk (Qizil).—The third species, the Qizil,[47] breeds in Māzenderān,[48] and in many other parts of Persia, and a fair number are captured in nets, each Autumn, together with the T̤arlāns. Like the last-described species, this also contains three varieties, the dark, the light, and the tawny. The dark variety with the cheek-stripe[49] is the best, and the darker this marking—with a tinge of red in it—the better the bird. With a “passage-bird”[50] of this last variety, the author has himself taken common cranes, great bustards, and “ravine-deer”[51] fawns. The difference between the wild caught Qizil and the T̤arlān is in reality very small. The latter has a somewhat finer presence, a more noble disposition, and is rather faster in flight; also from its habit of mounting higher and thus commanding a more extensive view, it is better able to mark down or “put in”[52] its quarry. It is for these reasons only that the T̤arlān has a higher value than the Qizil.[53]

[9]

[10]

Eyess of Qizil.—The eyess[54] of the Qizil is more courageous than the “passage hawk,”[55] for it has the courage of inexperience. Reared with fostering care from its nestling days, what recks it of the frowns of Fortune? Untaught by Time, what knows it of the spoiling Eagle’s might? Though the eyess may at first excel the passage-hawk in courage, it is inferior to it in powers of flight. With increased knowledge, comes decreased courage. In a word, the nestling bears the same relation to the passage-hawk that the town-bred man does to the desert tentman.

Passage and Eyess Qizil COMPARED WITH T̤arlān.—Compared with the eyess, the passage Qizil is the better, especially that variety which has the reddish-black cheek-stripe.[56] Although inferior in powers of flight to the T̤arlān, it is better at taking large quarry, and in this quality, as well as in affection for its master, it improves moult by moult. The T̤arlān, on the contrary, with increasing age becomes a regular old soldier: it wastes the day excusing itself and shirking its duty and saying: “Oh! an eagle put me off that time;” or “Why! I didn’t see the partridge;” or else, “How clumsily you cast me! You hurt my back.” When the sun is near sinking, the cunning truant will suddenly rouse itself, and by a grand effort kill in the finest style. Well it knows that at that late hour, a full crop and no more work must needs be the reward of its single exertion. With hopes excited, its gulled master will rise early next day,[11] and start off to make a big bag. Alas for the fair promise of last night!

The T̤arlān, however, brings luck to its owner. Besides it has a nature sweet, and docile, and loyal, and true. Hence of the T̤arlān it has been said:—

Much that has been written of the T̤arlān Goshawk is also applicable to the Common Sparrow-hawk.[57] There are four varieties, the light, the dark, the khaki, and the tawny. Of these four, the khaki has the best heart. The eyes in this variety are small; and the smaller the markings on the breast, the more the hawk will be esteemed, for the more courageous it will prove: it is the opposite of the Qizil.

With the Sparrow-hawk, I have myself taken teal, chukor,[12] stone-plover,[58] black-bellied sand-grouse[59] and short-eared owl.[60] Considering its size, the Sparrow-hawk is the boldest as well as the most powerful of all the short-winged hawks used in falconry.[61] I have frequently seen sparrow-hawks (especially eyesses) “bate”[62] at hares, but I could never muster up courage to let one go, to see the result.

Young Passage Sparrow-hawk.—Should a very good young sparrow-hawk be brought to you about the time of year that the Sun first enters into Virgo,[63] which is about the time the Sparrow-hawks first arrive in the country, nurse her carefully, for she is well worth keeping. At this time she will be a mere nestling, scarcely in fact more than seven weeks old. Her bones will not be properly set and her whole appearance will be spare and weakly. Now, don’t be in a hurry to fly her, unless indeed you wish to spoil her. If you destine her for large quarry, such as chukor, seesee,[64] black-bellied sand-grouse, and the like, “man” her very carefully, and let her take no fright at dogs or water, etc. Next train her to come to the lure, or fist. When she will fly readily to the fist, kill a small chicken under her daily,[65] and gorge her on it,—day by day increasing the size of the chicken, till she will fly readily to it,[13] and seize it in your hand, the moment that you present it held firmly by both its legs. Proud of the progress made by your pupil, you may feel inclined to release your grasp of the chicken’s legs, in order to allow her to kill it unaided; but on no account must this fatal inclination be yielded to.

Now, after the hawk has been called to, and gorged on, two or three chickens given in the hand, she must be entered to two or three flying pigeons; the pigeons, with shortened wings, being released before her, in such a manner that she may take them. Each time she takes the pigeon, kill it cautiously, and let her take her pleasure on it.

When she has taken a few pigeons in this manner, call her as before to a live fowl held by the legs, but this time call her to it from some distance. As soon as she comes and seizes it, which she ought to without hesitation, kill it, and gorge her on it.

As soon as her training reaches this point, she should be confined in a cupboard, some seven feet long by three and a half broad. The cupboard, which should first be thoroughly swept and cleaned, must be kept to such a pitch of darkness, that it will be impossible for its occupant to distinguish the day from the night. If much more light be admitted, the hawk, by bating against the door or wall, will probably do herself some irremediable injury. She should be fed every evening, three or four hours after dark, by the light of a lamp, being taken on the fist for the purpose, and allowed to eat her fill. Her principal food should be sparrows and young pigeons, but in any case she must have constant change of diet. When so gorged that she can eat no more, offer her water in a cup, flicking the water with the finger to attract her attention to it. If she drink, so much the better, let her drink her fill: but if she evince no inclination to drink, remove the water and replace her in her prison. This treatment must be continued for at least forty days.

After the expiration of forty days, reduce the quantity of her food for four or five nights, and carry her by lamp light; in fact treat her in every respect like a wild-caught hawk. Evening by evening, the amount of carriage must be increased, until she is thoroughly “manned,”[66] when she will be ready to obey her master’s every behest.

[14]

The above method has certain special advantages. During the rest in confinement, the hawk’s bones will become thoroughly hard and set;[67] and from the high feeding during that forty days, she will attain the growth and strength of a twelvemonth; and her toes will be long and thick; and even large quarry, such as chukor, pigeons, and black-bellied sand-grouse, will stand a poor chance of breaking away from her clutches.

It is of course understood that, if destined for large quarry, she must never have been flown at sparrows nor even given any small bagged bird whole, from the day you first get her till the present. She must be made to forget that there is such a thing as small quarry in existence, or that any bird is fit for food except partridge, and sand-grouse, or such large game.

Eyess Sparrow-hawk.—I will now instruct you in another method of training the Sparrow-hawk, by which, in the field, it will be no whit inferior to the goshawks of most falconers. In the early Spring, get some trusty fowler to mark down a tree, in which a pair of Sparrow-hawks are “timbering.”[68] A strict watch must be kept on the nest, and the first time the parent birds are observed carrying food to their young, the tree must be scaled, and all the nestlings, except the largest female, removed. The nest will contain from three to five nestlings. The whole attention of the parent birds will now be bestowed on the solitary occupant, which, by thriving apace, will fully repay the care lavished on it. The nestling must be inspected by the fowler almost daily, until the whole of the quill feathers of the tail and wings are out.[69] Then four or five days before it is ready to fly, he must “seel”[70] its eyes while it is still in the nest and remove it, substituting for it, one of the nestlings originally[15] abducted. The nest will not then be forsaken: the parent birds will rear the restored substitute, and will year after year build in the same tree.

The nestling, its eyes “seeled,” must be conveyed carefully home, and its education conducted in precisely the same manner as already described. When taken up at the end of the forty days of confinement, your friends will probably delight you by mistaking her for a male goshawk,[71] so great will be her size. What a goshawk will do, she will do.

The author has also adopted the above plan with nestlings of the Shāhīn, the Saker and the Qizil Goshawk, with eminently satisfactory results. He humbly begs leave to add that the idea is an original one.

The Pīqū (Shikra).—The next hawk to be described is the Pīqū. There are two varieties. The first, or tawny variety, has the markings on the breast large and distinct. The second, or dark variety, has a reddish tinge running through the darker colour of its plumage.

These hawks arrive in the country about the beginning of September, some twenty days before the advent of the Sparrow-hawks.

Inferiority of Eyess Pīqū.—Unlike the Sparrow-hawk, the eyess of the Pīqū is much inferior to the passage-hawk; the eyess, from its craven spirit, being with difficulty entered to quarry.[16] For this reason it is little esteemed. The eyess of the Sparrow-hawk, on the contrary, surpasses the passage-hawk.

Of the two varieties, the tawny is the better, surpassing, as it does, the Sparrow-hawk in appearance, more especially so after the first or second moult.

The dark variety, however, is sulky and runaway.

Though slower on the wing than the Sparrow-hawk, the tawny variety can take with success any quarry that the former can. In fact, from a working point of view, there is little to choose between them. The Pīqū is, however, by far the hardier of the two, enduring with indifference the extremes of heat and cold. Flown in the hot weather from morning till night, it shows no signs of distress, but rather seems to get brisker and brisker after each successive flight: it is impervious to fatigue. It is certainly quite ten times hardier than the Sparrow-hawk.

In affection for its master, it also surpasses the Sparrow-hawk, but as before stated, it is slow on the wing, and to be flown with success, requires to be thrown skilfully.[73] If unskilfully thrown, the quarry will get a start, and the hawk will meet with nothing but disappointment. The Pīqū must take its quarry right off or not at all.

In appearance the Pīqū very nearly resembles the Sparrow-hawk, but its feet are stouter, its “arms”[74] more powerful, and its wings shorter: it has also a conspicuous dark line under the chin. The larger this chin-line, the better the bird.[75]

The Shikra[76] is said to be of stouter and finer appearance than either the Pīqū or the Sparrow-hawk and to be trained in India to take the pied crow.[77] It is rarely found in Persia. I have never come across it. God alone knows the facts of the case.[78]

FOOTNOTES:

We now come to the Serpent Eagle,[79] so well known to every fowler. Should one be desired as a pet, it can either be captured by any of the ordinary fowler’s devices, or else taken with a chark͟h trained to eagles.[80] It must be fed principally on snakes, as it will not thrive on any other food.

FOOTNOTES:

[18]

We now come to the owls, of which there are eight or nine species, the most magnificent of them all being the Great Eagle Owl.[81]

Great Eagle Owl.—Nestlings of this species are frequently taken by fowlers, reared by hand, and then trained[82] for the sport of “owling.” When first taken from the nest, they must be well and frequently fed, and be kept in as high condition as possible; for if at all neglected at this age, the immature feathers become “strangled” and fall out.

As soon as Autumn commences and the weather begins to cool, i.e., as soon as the birds of prey and other birds have commenced their in-migration from the hills and other summer-quarters, the nestling owl is taken up, fitted with jesses,[83] carried on the fist, sparely dieted, and “manned,” just like a young hawk in training. When thoroughly “manned,” a stick is procured about twenty inches long: to one end of this a circular piece of black horse-blanket, or felt, is securely fastened. To this again a twist of black goat-hair rope[84] is attached, so that by its means the owl’s meat may be tied on to the black felt.

The fowler, in the morning, places the stick, garnished with meat, about two paces from him on the ground. He then takes the owl on his fist and shows it the meat on the stick. The owl will leave the fowler’s fist and fly to the meat. It is allowed to eat a little only of the meat, being taken up and flown at this lure a second, and a third time. It is then permitted to make a light meal and is removed.

[19]

In the late afternoon the lesson of the morning is repeated, the distance from which the owl is flown being slightly increased.

The above training is continued daily, the distance being increased step by step, till the owl will fly a good long way to the garnished stick laid on the ground. When this stage of the owl’s education is reached, the stick is no longer laid down, but, felt-side upwards, is planted lightly in the ground, in such a manner that the moment the owl settles on the felt to feed, the stick collapses. If the stick is planted too firmly, it will not fall flat to the ground, the result being that the owl remains suspended half way. As soon as the owl will fly readily to the upright stick, from a distance of five- or six-hundred paces,[85] its education may be considered complete.

Now, if accidents are to be avoided, the owl, during the whole of its training, must have been fed on nothing but red meat, meat without the vestige of a feather. If fed on pigeons or fowls, or any kind of “feather,” it may learn the fatal vice of bird-killing, a vice that will be fully appreciated by the fowler the first time a fine falcon becomes entangled in his net; for seeing the falcon struggling in the net, that dog-begotten owl will abandon the lure, and fastening on to the captive, will by a single squeeze of its deadly feet deprive her of life. Before the fowler can arrive, the murder is done, and his regrets—of what avail are they?

In addition to the owl, the fowler must procure a fine silk net. The silk thread from which it is made should be woven of six or seven fibres and should be dyed to match the ground where the net will eventually be set up. When in position, the net should be invisible. In size it should be about ten feet long by sixteen to eighteen feet broad.[86] A very long fine silk cord of the same colour as the net is threaded through its top meshes, and the net (erected much in the same manner as an ordinary du-gaza[87] for[20] catching sparrow-hawks), is supported in an upright position by two very light poles[88] as long as the breadth of the net, and these are placed under the cord, at fourteen to fifteen paces distance from the ends of the net. The ends of the cord are made fast to pegs driven into the ground at a good distance from the ends of the net. The poles must be so erected that, at any slight shock to the net, they will collapse suddenly.

The “luring-stick,” garnished with a shank of sheep or goat securely tied to the black felt, is now erected exactly in the centre of the net, and about five feet[89] from it. The net so arranged is in position for use.

The fowler now takes the owl on his fist, shows it the garnished “luring-stick,” and then turns about and walks off in the opposite direction for a distance of five- or six-hundred paces: he then halts, turns about again, and casting off the owl into the air, quickly conceals himself.

The owl, in accordance with its previous training, flies straight for the lure, and is soon closely mobbed by all the birds of the neighbourhood. Do not leave your ambush; watch. If you are near the hills, perhaps a goshawk, qizil or t̤arlān, or else a saker falcon will come down and join the crowd. The owl, however, having no other object but to reach its goal, ignores the clamouring presence of its pursuers and continues on its straight course. The first bird to buffet the owl, on its alighting on the lure, is a fast prisoner in the net.

Let us suppose a noble saker falcon has thus fallen a victim to your fowler toils. Leave your ambush, and, cautiously and gently, I adjure thee by God, go and secure thy prisoner, treating her with all honour and respect.

The eyes of a newly caught hawk should be “seeled” on the spot, and if a fine needle and fine thread (not silk) be used for the purpose,[21] the falconer into whose hands the hawk eventually falls, will call down blessings, not curses, on the operator’s head.

Nestling of Eagle-Owl Preferred.—For the above sport, the nestling is preferred to the wild caught bird. Being ignorant and inexperienced, and consequently more courageous, it treats eagles and other unknown dangers, with contempt. The nestling has also greater staying power.[90] The hours it should be flown are from early morning till about eleven o’clock, and from three in the afternoon till within half an hour of sunset. A hundred flights in the day are not too much for a really good bird.[91]

Disadvantages of wild-caught Owl.—The wild-caught owl soon gets done up, and after a few flights gets sulky and flies off aimlessly and settles on the ground.

Arab Name for Eagle-Owl.—The Arabs call the Eagle-Owl Fahd^u ’l-Layl, or “Panther[92] of the Night.” What the Golden Eagle is to the day, the Eagle-Owl is to the night. Hares and foxes fall an easy prey to it.[93]

Riding Down Eagle-Owl.—Should you, by chance, when riding out in the open country, put up an Eagle-Owl, set your horse into a gallop and start in hot chase. If closely pressed, the owl will not rise more than thrice; after that it may be easily captured.[94]

Treatment of newly caught Eagle-Owl.—It is not at all necessary to “seel” the eyes of an owl captured in the above manner. It should at once be placed on the fist and “carried” like a short-winged hawk; if it declines to sit up, duck its head under water three or four times in rapid succession. This will[22] soon bring it to its senses and send away its perversity: plunging its head in cold water extinguishes the fire of pride in its heart and makes it steady as a rock.[95]

[Short-eared Owl; Long-eared Owl.—The author now imperfectly describes five or six species of owl, which the translator is unable with any certainty to identify. The first species mentioned by him is the Yāplāg͟h or Yāplāq, and this species he again divides into two sub-species or races, viz., the “Desert or Plain Yāplāq,” and the “Garden or Grove Yāplāq.” The colour of the latter is said to be somewhat darker than that of the former. The first species is probably the Short-eared Owl (Otus brachyotus); while the second is probably either the Common Long-eared Owl (Otus vulgaris), or the Tawny Wood-Owl. The author also states that[23] the former species, once it has successfully shifted from the first stoop of the falcon and has begun to “tower,”[96] is an exceedingly difficult quarry, and that only a passage Shāhīn or Peregrine is equal to the flight, the Saker not being swift enough.[97] The latter species of owl, he adds, is a poor performer and unable to “ring up”[96] to any great distance without being overtaken and killed.

Indian Grass-Owl.—The Short-eared Owl is, however, an easier quarry than the Indian Grass-Owl (Strix candida), which in India is taken both with Sakers and Peregrines. If, however, the Saker is not in high condition (in much higher condition than it is usually kept by natives of India), both hawk and quarry will soon be lost to view, ringing up, on a calm day completely out of sight and almost perpendicularly into the sky. In this species the iris is dark; it is therefore presumed that neither it nor any nearly allied species can be included under the name yāplāq.

Indian falconers, however, in the Panjab, have only one name for both the Short-eared and the Grass-Owl.

Afghan falconers state that, in their country, the Short-eared Owl is a common quarry for the Saker, as well as for the Peregrine.

The author continues:]—

Bride of the Well.—The next species of owl is smaller than the Yāplāq, and is hornless. Its prevailing colour is a yellowish white, something like that of the Tīqūn Goshawk. This species is especially common in Baghdad and other sacred places.[98] It is known to the Arabs by the name of the “Bride of the Well.”[99] It preys principally on the pigeons of the “Sacred Precincts;”[100] for that cuckoldy pimp, lacking regard and consideration, has settled that the pigeons of the precincts[100] are its proper prey, so it hunts [24]them in the night-watches. In the Spring the attendants pull out the young owls from their holes in the walls, or from the interiors of the domes, and slay them. This species is smaller than the Yāplāq.

Little Owl (Spotted owlet?).—[The author next mentions a small owl that he styles Bāya-qūsh or Chug͟hd. In the Panjab, the spotted owlet (Athene Brama) is known by the latter name.[101] The author says of this species:]—It frequents old ruins. A young shāhīn, intended for the flight of the stone-plover, should first be given two or three pigeons from the hand, and then flown at a wild chug͟hd or two. After that it may be entered to stone-plover. The chug͟hd is useful for no other purpose but this.

“Bird of Night-melody”[102] or “Bird of Testimony.”[103]—The next species we come to is the “Bird of Night-melody,”[102] better known under its popular name of “The Bird of Testimony.”[103] The male of this beautifully marked little owlet is scarcely larger than a lark.[104]

All the above species of owl are strictly nocturnal in their habits.

Harriers.—[The author next proceeds to describe what appear to be two species of harriers. He says:]—

We now come to the Bayl-bāqilī, called by the Kurds, Dasht-māla,[105] and by the Arabs, Abū-ḥikb. There are two species, one yellow-eyed, and one dark-eyed.[106]

Yellow-eyed Species.—In the yellow-eyed species, the plumage of the young bird is henna-coloured [chestnut brown], but after its first moult, some white feathers make their appearance. After the second or third moult, the plumage is very like that of the Tīqūn Goshawk, the back turning a bluish grey and the breast becoming white. The female is about the size of a small Qizil “tiercel.”[107] Only a falconer could distinguish the adult female from a Tīqūn tiercel. The “stalke” of this species is long and slender.

Dark-eyed Species.—In the dark-eyed species, there is no material difference between the plumage of the young and the adult bird. In the latter, however, the markings on the breast are larger. The general colouring of the dark-eyed species is darker than that of the yellow-eyed.

In habits, both species are similar; they haunt open plains, preying on mice and sparrows, and occasionally on quails. They are mean-spirited, ignoble birds, with poor and weakly frames.

Wager with the Shāh.—When in attendance on the Shāh (may our souls be sacrificed for him!) I once made a bet with some[26] fellow sportsmen that I would catch a harrier[108] and train it to take chukor. I made no idle boast. Praise be to God, I won my bet and proved myself a man of my word, for I trained it and took a chukor with it. The puissant King of Kings, who has surpassed in renown even Jamshed and Cyrus, regarded me with extreme condescension, and in just appreciation of my skill bestowed on me lavish commendation and a rich robe of honour.

On a second occasion, in Baghdad, I laid a wager of a Nejd mare with some sportsmen of that city, that within a space of fifty days I would “reclaim”[109] one of these hawks and successfully fly it at wild quarry. I flew it in the presence of my friends, and took with it one black partridge,[110] one quail, and one rail.[111]

As previously stated, it is quite possible to train these hawks, as indeed it is possible to train many other useless birds of prey: even—

The harrier is an ill-tempered bird with no great powers of flight. To train it is a matter of extreme difficulty, and the result by no means repays the labour. However, give the devil his due: it is very long-winded.

[The description of the Bearded Vulture[112] as given by the author is sufficiently accurate for identification. He, however, adorns it with “two horns or ears like those of the horned owls.” He then continues:]—

The Lammergeyer is noted for its wondrous powers of flight. It soars aloft, bearing with ease a bone as large as the bleached thigh-bone of a donkey. This it drops on a rock, and then descends to eat the shattered fragments.[113] The Poet has said of it:—

Popular Superstition.—It is a popular superstition that any one wilfully slaying a Lammergeyer will meet his death within [28]forty days. Once, when out hawking, I saw one of these fateful birds seated on a stone a short distance from me. With me was a servant, a sturdy villain fearing nothing. Gun in hand he approached the Lammergeyer, bent on slaughter. Do all I could, I failed to dissuade him. I told him the popular superstition, but he laughed and said, “Oh! that’s an old woman’s story.” Heedless of my advice he shot the Lammergeyer, and died himself on the fortieth day. This is a fact: I myself was an eye-witness. Was his death a mere coincidence, or is there truth in the vulgar belief? God knows.

Taking a Lammergeyer with a Chark͟h.—I was once hawking in Sulaymānīya Shahrzūr[115] and saw what I took to be an eagle,[116] seated on a stone some little way off. I had with me a very fine chark͟h[117] trained to eagles.[118] To unhood and cast it off was the work of a moment, and it was not till I had actually secured the quarry, that I discovered it was no eagle but a Lammergeyer. I recollected the fate of my servant, and hastily released it. [By a play on the words humā and humāyūn, the author here pays the Shāh a flowery and far-fetched compliment, difficult to render in English. He pretends that the popular belief mentioned in the first note on the previous page was certainly fulfilled in his case, since the King of Kings had always distinguished him by his especial friendship and bounty, and thus raised him to the dignity of ordinary kingship. He adds:]—

[The author gives only a very brief description of the Osprey and its habits, mentioning the peculiar structure of its feet, and its habit of hovering over water. He also mentions that like the Shikra Sparrow-hawk (Pīg͟hū), and the Sangak, the iris is sometimes dark and sometimes yellow.[120] He adds:]—

I once took one alive with a chark͟h and kept it in confinement for some little time. It could not be induced to eat meat, refusing all food except fish. It is with reference to the osprey that the poet has said:—

[The author commences this chapter with the statement that it is his intention to describe those species of the black-eyed birds of prey that have at different times come into his possession, or that have been trained by him “according to their several capabilities.” His descriptions of the eagles are too vague for identification. All the eagles, he says, are migratory, with the exception of the ʿUqāb-i māh-dum or “Moon-tailed eagle,”[123] which he describes as follows:]—

ʿUqāb-i māh-dum, “The Moon-tailed Eagle.”—The whole of the tail of this eagle is white, with the exception of the end, which is black. The plumage of the breast, back, and head, is uniformly dark, without markings of any description. Its powers of fasting are extraordinary: it can endure seven or eight days without food and yet be not one whit the worse. Migration, too, is not a necessity for it. Even in the depth of Winter I have observed it high up in the snows. It seldom descends into the plains. The fierce rays of the sun and the bitter blasts of the snows are all one to its proud, enduring nature. I have observed it in the hills, preying on partridges, hares, and “lambs.”[124] It is the most daring and powerful of all the eagles.

[31]

ʿUqāb-i kūchigān [White-tailed Sea Eagle?].—The next species is the ʿUqāb-i kūchigān. In this species the whole of the tail (which is rather short) is white. The wings are long, and the flight is exceedingly swift. The plumage of the back and breast is dark. The beak, which is large and powerful as a vulture’s, is of the colour of amber. This eagle always hunts and feeds in couples, preying chiefly on water-fowl; hence it is seldom found far from water.

ʿUqāb-i ā,īna-lī [Imperial Eagle?].—In this eagle, which is smaller than either of the preceding, the back, breast, claws and beak are all uniformly dark; the colouring of the head is a dark reddish brown. Fowlers have named it Ā,īna-lī[125] from the fact of its having a few white feathers in its back.

Karlak.—This eagle equals the first-named species, i.e., the Māh-dum, in size. The beak and claws are black and extraordinarily powerful. The plumage is generally brown, and covered with markings. The head and back are, however, one uniform colour. In habits it resembles all the eagles.

Black Eagle.—Another species is black without markings, but the colour of the head is slightly different from that of the body. It is not a very noble species.

ʿUqāb-i zard (“Yellow Eagle.”)—Description. The plumage of the back is very dark, with a tinge of yellow in it, while that of the breast is tawny (yellow), and marked with longitudinal black drops. The head and neck are very handsome, and somewhat like a goshawk’s. This eagle, in the immature plumage, is called the ʿUqāb-i sīna-bāzī.

Once, when in attendance on the Shāh, I trained a single specimen of this species, and took a certain amount of quarry with it.

Būq-k͟hura; The “Frog-eater” [Spotted Eagle?].—Another species of eagle is the ʿUqāb-i qurbāqa-chī[126] (“Frog-eater”), called by the people of Kurdistan Sulemāniya, Būq-k͟hura.[126] The plumage of the head, neck, back, and breast is blackish yellow. This eagle frequents marshes and reed beds, preying on wounded or dead [32]water-fowl. Failing these, it contents itself with frogs, dead fish, or other stranded material. It is from this habit of eating frogs that it has earned its names of “Frog-eagle” and “Frog-eater.”

Dūbarār [A Hawk-Eagle?].—In habits the Dūbarār resembles the eagles, but not in size, the male being scarcely larger than a female goshawk.[127] This species always hunts in couples and is very daring and bold by nature. In the immature bird, the plumage of the back is a yellowish black, while that of the breast is a dark red without spot or marking. After the moult, the plumage of the breast assumes a deeper and brighter hue. The “pendant”[128] feathers of the thigh hang down to the tarsus.

When in ʿArabistān,[129] I once took one with a chark͟h I had trained to eagles. I succeeded in training it in the space of about forty days and flew it successfully at black partridge, parah malā,[130] hare, and common heron.[131] A friend of mine then took it from me.

Large numbers of these eagles breed in the vicinity of Hamadān.[132] I have trained nestlings, but never with success: they are poor performers on the wing. The wild-caught bird is superior in every way. Still I found this species swifter and more tractable than any other kind of eagle.

The Sār (or Buzzard).—Another kind of eagle is the buzzard,[133] of which there are two common species. In the first the general[33] colouring of the plumage is very dark without spot or marking: the feet and cere are a deep orange yellow. The plumage of the second is tawny. Both species are ill-conditioned and villainous by nature. Their prey is rats, mice, frogs, lizards, and wounded or sickly birds. When they dare, they rob their more weakly neighbours. They are too mean-spirited for the purposes of falconry.

Kites [and Harriers].—There are three common species of kites.[134] In the first, the two centre tail-feathers, called by the Arabs ʿamūd,[135] and by Persian and Turkish[136] falconers qāpāq,[137] are shorter than the rest, the outer feathers being longer. The general colouring of the plumage is a dirty brown with dark coloured drops on the breast. The feet are small and the tarsi[138] short.

2nd Species [Marsh Harrier?].—The second species haunts marshes and reedy pools in quest of frogs and rats. In this species the tarsus is long[139] and unfeathered, and the feet are small, ill-looking, and black. There is also a certain amount of white on the head.

3rd Species.—In the third species the general colouring of the[34] plumage—with the exception of the head, which is reddish—is very dark. In habits it resembles the two preceding.

All three species are cowardly and mean-spirited. A good T̤arlān, trained to large quarry, will generally take them.[140]

Should the fork-tailed kite[141] see a sparrow-hawk or merlin with a bird in its feet, it will fuss round it, doing its utmost to steal it from the lucky possessor. If unsuccessful, it returns to its quest of mice and garbage.

These above-described species are related to the eagles. Under this head, too, I have even included the Carrion Vulture[142] and the Scavenger Vulture.[143]

Vulture.—[The author now briefly describes a species of bare-necked vulture that he calls Dāl, apparently the only species of true vulture known to him. The description contains nothing of interest. He continues:]—

Scavenger or Egyptian Vulture.—Before the first moult the plumage of the Scavenger Vulture is dark, with a few small light-coloured spots on the back and breast. The head is nude and yellow. After the first moult, a certain number of white feathers make their appearance. After the second, the bird becomes quite white, with the exception of the ends of the flight-feathers, which remain black.

The gut[144] of this vulture, which is at the end of the sternum,[145] applied as a poultice, fresh and warm, for three consecutive days,[35] is a certain cure for scabbed eyes that water, and from which the lashes have dropped off, or for fistulous sores that will yield to no ointment. The poultices should not be removed for twelve hours: it will then be noticed that numerous minute worms have been drawn by them from the wound. At the third application, if it please God, a cure will be effected. The author can testify to the efficacy of this remedy.

Use as a “train.”—If it is intended to train a chark͟h to take eagles, it should first be given the necessary “trains” by hand, and then entered to wild quarry by being flown a few times at young scavenger vultures in the dark immature plumage. As they are slow on the wing and show no fight,[146] the young chark͟h can take them with ease.

Though purely carrion feeders, the Vultures (as also the Raven described in the next chapter) are generally included amongst the Rapacious Birds: these huge birds, with beaks powerful enough to tear open the skin of a dead camel or ass, are unable to catch and kill even a helpless partridge.

Raven.—The Raven,[147] though a carrion feeder, has just claims to be considered a Bird of Prey. I recollect once seeing a raven in the[36] jungle seize a wild chukor; I eventually succeeded in releasing the bird from its clutches.

It is a peculiarity of the Raven that if it is deprived of sight by having its eyeballs pierced with a needle, it may, by confinement in darkness for the space of twenty-four hours, be completely restored to sight.

In ʿArabistān it is caught in traps and trained for fowling in the same manner that the Kestril[148] is trained in the Dashtistān[149] of Fārs, and the eagle-owl in Kirmānshāh[150] and elsewhere.

Shunqār or Jerfalcon.—The Jerfalcon[151] is a species known to me only by description. During the whole of my sporting career, [37]I have neither come across it myself, nor known a falconer to whom it was more than a name.

Specimen brought from Russia.—In the year of the Flight 1284[152] a strange falcon which I take to be a Shunqār was bought in Russia for a great price, and presented as a curiosity to His Lofty and Imperial Highness, the Shāh of Shāhs, the Shadow of God. Out of the plenitude of his bounty and the immensity of his condescension, His Most Noble and Exalted Majesty delivered it into the humble keeping of his servant [i.e., the author], decreeing that it should be trained to the flight of the Common Crane. The Royal Gift was accepted by this slave, with due tokens of humility: he kissed the falcon’s jesses and then placed it on his obedient head:—

Scanning the bird with a falconer’s eye, I saw that three flight-feathers of each wing were old and unshed. It was evident it had been taken up while still in the moult, so I had it replaced in the mew[153] and fed on fresh birds, with frequent changes of diet. Three months later it was taken up clean moulted, not a single old feather remaining.

As it may interest falconers, I append a description of this particular falcon.

Description.—In size it was about half as large again as a fine female Saker Falcon.[154] The plumage of the back and head was a brown ash colour, and each feather of the back and tail was marked with two tiny white spots. From the back of the neck to the rump, the plumage was ash-coloured, and covered with small yellowish-white spots. The breast was white, each breast feather being[38] tipped with one small black spot and margined with black marks interlacing each other like the links of a chain. The tarsi[155] were robust and short; the feet small in proportion to its size, but stout and powerful; the claws and beak black; the iris dark, and the thighs[156] as thick as those of a male eagle.[157] The wing in length was something betwixt that of the long-winged and short-winged hawks, longer than that of a qizil or t̤arlān, and shorter than that of a shāhīn or a saker. The tail was broad and full of spots and markings. Like the Qara-qūsh-i ā,īna-lī,[158] it had a few stiff white feathers in the back, whether a mark of the species or merely a sign of old age, I am unable to say. (White feathers do occasionally make their appearance in aged sakers.) In weight it equalled nearly three sakers.[159] From my experience of hawks I should say that, when it reached me, it was in its tenth or twelfth moult. What its immature plumage may have been like, I cannot even guess.

Teaching the Falcon to Know its Name.—After removing this falcon from the mew,[160] I commenced her training with the utmost care. I named her “Shunqār.” By feeding her through the hood, calling her by name the while, she quickly learnt to recognize her name and associate it with a good meal.[161]

When she had somewhat abated her high condition and had begun to show a proper inclination for food, I attached a strong “creance”[162] to her jesses and carried her out into the field to lure her to a lure of crane’s wings. Unhooded by my falconer she[39] started with eagerness, but had hardly flown a few feet before she subsided to the ground and attempted to finish the distance on foot. I examined her carefully. Her feathers were perfect, and she appeared sound in wind and limb. What could be the cause of her extraordinary behaviour? Puzzled and perplexed, I buried my head in the collar of reflection, determined to unravel the tangled skein of the difficulty. Still, ransack my brains as I might, the clue to the mystery eluded me. I then screwed up my courage, and putting my trust in God, removed the “creance” from her feet, and called her again. The result was much as before. I bit the finger of astonishment, and by reason of the falcon’s great infirmity became plunged in the abyss of despondency. Burying my head in the collar of reflection my thoughts drifted to those animal-gardens in Europe, where people buy strange beasts and birds for ridiculous prices, and after turning them into a public show for a few years, tire of them and put them up to public auction. It then dawned on me that my falcon must have come from one of those very gardens, and that, like a long-caged parrot, which, wild defied the swiftness of the Sparrow-Hawk,[163] can now flutter no higher than its own perch, it too from long imprisonment had grown stiff-jointed and wing-tied.

Daily Exercise.—That the falcon might recover her lost powers of flight, I set about exercising her daily. Morning and evening I used to bear her to the top of a high mound[164] and cast her off, giving her five flights at each exercise. On the sixteenth day, instead of, as usual, merely flying down to the level, she went off some distance and settled on a second mound. I decided this was sufficient and commenced calling her to the lure, luring her at first from high ground to a lower level.

“Trains.”—When her powers of flight were fully recovered I gave her a certain number of “trains,” and gradually succeeded in thoroughly entering her to common crane. At last one joyous day, on the auspicious occasion of the Royal return from a pilgrimage to Qum,[165] I unhooded her at a common crane near the caravan stage of[40] Pul-i Dallāk,[166] and in the Imperial presence of the Shāh—let our souls be sacrificed for him! Right nobly the falcon acquitted herself, “towering” up into the clouds, and striking a huge crane down to the dust of the earth.

Disposition of the “Shunqār.”—Judging from my small experience, I should say that the Shunqār Falcon has naturally a docile and fearless disposition. At the moment I write (i.e., in the year of the Flight, 1285),[167] the bird I have described has been in my possession just two years. During this period she has twice moulted. This year, I rejoice to say, she was “full summed”[168] quite three months earlier than last.

Suffers from Heat.—Though kept on a damp bed of pebbles and sand, in the Bāg͟h-i Raz-kanda, in the cool region of Shimrānāt,[169] she yet feels the heat greatly, so that even in this cool climate of Shimrān she has to be well supplied with ice and snow, both of which she swallows freely.

Haggard Tiercel.—This year—it being the Spring of A.H. 1286—owing to the high fortune of His Majesty (sacrificed be our souls for him!), and the kindly aid of Heaven, the royal trappers have snared a “tiercel” of this species. It was caught in the district of K͟hār and Varamīn,[170] and is a fully moulted “haggard.”[171] It is now, in the beginning of this Spring, something less than two months since it first came into my hands; and I have now placed it in the mew. I have taken with it both purple[172] and common heron. This “tiercel” is a stout and heavy bird about as large as a female saker. Its flight is lofty and swift; its nature noble and[41] generous. I have now set it down to moult and am anxious as to the result.

Of the Shunqār it is fabled that when flown at a flock[173] of cranes it does not act like ordinary falcons and single out and kill a solitary individual; that its lofty and imperious nature permits it to cease from slaughter only when every crane in the flock is a carcass on the ground. Now this is a superlative falsehood. My shunqār, like other hawks, kills only one. It has, indeed, chanced to me that, when flying a passage saker at a flock of cranes, the falcon, stooping from a height and dealing a crane a deadly blow, has then shot upwards by its impetus, and finding itself close to a second bird, has seized the unexpected opportunity, and “bound”[174] to the second crane’s head and so added a second victim to the bag. Once indeed I saw three cranes killed in this manner by a single hawk. Such occurrences are, however, lucky accidents. No hawk that I ever knew systematically acted in this manner.[175]

It is also commonly believed that the Shunqār is the acknowledged sovereign of the hawk tribe, and that should one be placed in the mew, every hawk will step down from its perch in token of humble submission. This, too, is a falsehood, pure and simple,—or else my young man is not a shunqār. At the moment I write I have more than fifty hawks of various kinds in my mews, but not one of them has ever left its perch, or honoured this sovereign, or shown respect in any manner of way. What is more, my fine gentleman the Shunqār stands very much in awe of eagles. Of course I am assuming that this hawk is a “shunqār;” equally of course I may be mistaken. All I know is that neither have I, nor has the oldest falconer in Persia, ever seen a falcon like it. The manner it stoops and recovers[176] is unequalled, either by[42] the Shahin or the Saker. I have several times flown it at common crane with a good shāhīn[177] trained to this flight, and it has always reached the quarry and bound to it before the latter came up.[178] Every one says it is a shunqār. I say so, too. Of the “’tis” and the “’tisn’t” of the case, God alone is the Judge.

This species is very widely distributed. It is divided into three varieties—namely, the dark, the light and the yellow.

The best shāhīns are procured from three districts: from Urūm[180] [44]in Ottoman territory, from Ardabīl[181] in Persia, and from the hills of Shammar[182] in Arabia on the road to the holy city of Mecca.

The Urūm shahin is particularly common in Sīvās,[183] which place may be described as the “mine” of this variety. My private opinion, however, is that this, the shahin of Urūm, is not a shahin at all, but the young of the Peregrine; i.e., when snared it is a “peregrine,” when taken from the nest a “shahin.” My reason for forming this opinion is that I happened one Spring to be in Sīvās and called on the Governor. At my request he gave me a guide, who conducted me to a spot about two farsak͟h from the city, where there was a shahin’s eyrie in the hill-side. I sat down to observe it. My patience was soon rewarded by the appearance of the parent birds, bringing food for their young. I observed the birds closely, and discovered that they were not shahins but peregrines. This strengthened my previous supposition that confusion existed between the nestling and the passage hawk of the same species.

On another occasion I met a shikārchī[184] in Sīvās, with a peregrine on his fist. “What have you there,” I asked, “and what does it kill?” His reply was, “This is a shahin, which I took myself from the nest, and which I have trained to take eagles.” I accompanied him to his house, where he showed me ten or fifteen live eagles with clipped wings, which he kept loose near the house. It appeared that they had all been taken with the falcon then on his fist. I was seized with a desire to possess her, and offered him a large price; but he declined to part with his treasure.

The Shāhīn OF Jabal Shammar.—Although the shahin from the mountains of Shammar is small, the female not exceeding in size the male of the other two species, still it is swift, bold, and easily entered to quarry, small or great. One eyrie, known by the name Jarāza, is especially famous; eyesses obtained from it are better and bolder than all others.

Though the passage shahin has more pace and a better wind [46]than the eyess, it is far less tractable, for it has preyed for itself in the jungle, and is filled with overweening pride of its powers of flight. Say you have, with infinite pains, succeeded in training one to large quarry, and have unhooded her at a common crane or a heron, and that suddenly, beneath her, she spies a wild duck, or a pigeon, or some other small quarry. What does she do? She “checks,” forsaking the large quarry for the small, and fills you with bitter disappointment. Now an eyess shahin will not act in this scurvy manner.

Supposing a passage falcon, shahin or peregrine, comes into your possession and you have no choice but to enter her to large quarry, you should blind her in the left eye, for when her right eye is on the quarry she has no spare eye to cast elsewhere, and her whole attention is necessarily occupied with the quarry at which she has been unhooded. This is in accordance with the saying of the poet:—

I have successfully made the experiment and speak from experience.

Should you, however, wish to keep her for small quarry, on no account blind her. For small quarry you will find her better than the eyess: she will ring up better, especially after Royston Crows[186] and those blackguardly yāplāq owls.[187]

As remarked previously, the passage shahin and the peregrine are one and the same, with this difference, that the peregrine is stronger and larger. The courage of the peregrine, too, is greater than that of the passage shahin.

Rūmalī[188] eyess shahins are bolder than all others—especially the dark variety.

Baḥrī.—I have already stated my opinion that the Peregrine is merely the Rūmalī Shāhīn caught after it has left the nest.

At any rate the best variety of peregrine is the yellowish, almond[189]-coloured, variety.

I have trained peregrines[190] to gazelle. They are, however, delicate[191] birds, as well as bold and daring: they dash themselves impetuously against the gazelle’s horns and thus frequently injure themselves fatally. This is the reason that falconers do not care to train them to gazelle. Further, on account of the flightiness[192] of their disposition they are not so very highly prized. When choosing a peregrine, select one with large feet, short legs, and long slender wings. Count the scales on the middle toe. Ordinarily there are only seventeen or eighteen.[193] If you find a bird[48] with twenty-one, you have a treasure. A good peregrine should have a fine full breast, a broad back, and toes that are long and lean; and its body should be round and compact. An old master has not without reason sung:—

[The author now mentions fourteen races and varieties of bālābān,[197] each of which he distinguishes by some special epithet.

[50]

Kabīdī (?).—The first race or variety described is apparently named kabīdī:[199]]—It has a white head, without any cheek-stripe or dark mark under the eyes.[200] With this exception the colouration is dark: the feathers of both the body and the tail[201] are without spots. It is large in size and bold in nature, and good for either crane[202] or gazelle, but, alas, it is scarce. In the whole of my experience I have met with only one.

Bālābān-i Fārsī.—Next is the Bālābān-i Fārsī, or “Saker of Fārs,” which is subdivided into the red and the white varieties. Neither has cheek stripes. The back, from the neck to the oil-bottle,[203] is covered with spots and markings, and the redder these are in tint, the better the bird. The flight-feathers,[204] seven in each wing, are also covered with spots. The feet are a very light slate-colour. The darker and smaller the beak, tongue, and nails, the better. The feet are lean, the tarsi short, the thighs stout, the chest and back broad, the wings fine and pointed, the eyes sunken, the eyebrows prominent; the neck is long, the forehead broad, the “waist” small. If the hawk has all these points, it is incomparable.

Bālābān-i Aḥmar-i Shām.—Next is the Bālābān-i aḥmar-i Shām or the “Red Syrian Saker,” of which there are two varieties, the red and the black. In a good bird of this race, the two centre tail-feathers, called by the Arabs ʿamūd or “props,” and [52]by the Turks qāpāq,[205] as well as the two outer tail-feathers, one on each side,[206] should be without spot or marking.

Bālābān-i Badrī.—The next race is called badrī.[207] It has a white head and no cheek stripe. The general colouration is reddish, and the back and breast are without markings. The two centre tail-feathers are sometimes with spots and sometimes without: if with spots the smaller and redder they are the better.

These four races or varieties are by the Arabs styled ḥurr ṣāfī.[208]

Badū-pasand (?).—[A variety of the Badrī has a name[209] that cannot be deciphered with certainty.] This is a variety of the Badrī, but the whole of the tail is white without the admixture of any other colouring. It is uncommon, and though it belongs to the class of ḥurr,[208] it is poor-spirited and not prized.

Jibālī.—The next race is the Mountain[210] (?) Saker. It has a little black only, under the eye. It has on the back, two, four, or six white spots, called by the Arabs Pleiades (Thurayyā). The “prop” feathers have sometimes spots and sometimes none. In any case it is not styled by the Arabs ḥurr ṣāfī, for the ḥurr ṣāfī must not only be without cheek stripes, but must also have certain other points.

The first four described are, however, all included in the ḥurr ṣāfī. According to the idiom of Arab falconers, the ḥurr ṣāfī must have the back “free from Pleiades,”[211] the “prop” feathers “clear of marks,”[212] and the two outside feathers (one on each side) “void of stain.”[213] Also it must have no cheek stripe, nor black under the eyes. Should the hawk not have these points, they class it as jibālī and not as ḥurr ṣāfī.

[53]

[54]

Bālābān-i Lafīf.—Next is the bālābān-i lafīf,[214] and of this there are three varieties, the yellowish, the dark, and the light. All three have cheek-stripes or dark feathers under the eyes. As in the case of the eyess chark͟h, if this race is taken from the nest it is called in Turki aitālgī, in Arabic wacharī,[215] and in Persian chark͟h. Should it have left the nest and be caught in a net, it is called (in Persian) bālābān-i lafīf.

Now as for those four races described above as ḥurr ṣāfī, I have in my many travels and constant inquiries never met with any hawk-catcher or sportsman[216] who has taken a ḥurr ṣāfī from the nest. No one even knows in what country, birds of this race breed. All I know for certain is, that in the beginning of Autumn they come to us from across the sea, from the direction of Muscat and Baḥrayn.[217] God knows where they breed and whence they travel. Those that I have seen in Persia, Turkey,[218] and Europe[219] have all been lafīf and have all had cheek stripes.

The lafīf is to the ḥurr ṣāfī what the t̤arlān is to the qizil, or what the Nejd[220] horse is to the Turkoman pony.[221] Moult after moult the ḥurr ṣāfī becomes better, whereas the lafīf flies well for not more than three seasons: after that it becomes cunning.[222] I have at present two bālābān of the ḥurr ṣāfī race, one of sixteen and one of seventeen moults; one is “Persian” and the other “Red [55]Syrian.”[223] Both are still excellent at common crane.[224] Birds of this race, while life lasts, year by year improve, for their nature is noble.

The Bālābān-i Lafīf of Baghdad.—A variety of the Lafīf that I have met with nowhere except in Baghdad, is called by Baghdad falconers Wacharī.[225] In general colouring, it is dark with a tinge of red on the head. The flight-feathers are dark in colour and long, extending beyond the tail. It has small feet and the female is about the same size as the tiercel of the eyess chark͟h.[226] It is very swift, nearly as swift as the shāhīn. It takes the small piebald crow,[227] black partridge,[228] and stone-plover, with ease. Some few I have seen that would take houbara.

It has a great outward resemblance to the Hobby which is found round Teheran.

The eyess chark͟h[229] is of four kinds. First there is the variety that in the Spring[230] months breeds in the hills of Persia and Turkey.[231]

Another is found in Nejd[232] in Turkish territory, where it lays its[56] eggs on the bare ground, like the black-breasted sand-grouse,[233] and the houbara bustard. This variety is called chark͟h-i māniʿī.[234]

Another kind nests in the hills and dry water-courses of Nejd. From thence nestlings are obtained by the Arabs who style them Ḥijāzī.[235]

All these kinds, if obtained from the nest, are chark͟h, and if snared after they have left the nest are lafīf.

The chark͟h-i māniʿī is exceptionally good, whether for gazelle, or common crane, or golden eagle: you can train it to anything. I am able to state that it is faster even than the shāhīn, for I have often flown one at crane in company with a shāhīn, and it has reached and “bound” to the crane a long way ahead of it.[236]

The colouration of the māniʿī varies, but that variety that has very red markings on the back, like a kestril,[237] is the best. Of all the chark͟hs of the world the māniʿī with red spots on the back is the best. Although it is an eyess (chark͟h) and is obtained from the nest, it is equal to any noble passage falcon (bālābān) of the ḥurr ṣāfī race. It is to be obtained only from the Arabs of Unayza.[238] In that waterless part of ʿArabistān its chief prey is houbara and hare.[239]

The Arabs have two strange devices for catching the bālābān. It chances sometimes that, while out hawking, a wild bālābān will suddenly drop from the sky, and seize a flushed houbara. The Arabs wait till the falcon has broken into the quarry and has begun to eat. Then they go slowly towards the falcon, which, unable to carry off the heavy quarry, perforce abandons it: the falcon will retire to a distance of five- or six-hundred yards and regard her quarry with eyes of regret. Two shikār-chīs go up to the dead houbara and quickly and deftly dig a pit in the sand with their sticks. One of them stealthily gets into this pit and is completely covered with sand, his nose only being above ground. One arm is extended, but concealed by a light sprinkling of sand. The dead houbara is then placed on his open palm and the other men all withdraw to a distance. After a short time, the bālābān, seeing the coast clear, returns without suspicion to its prey. Poor thing, what knows it of what is underground? Slowly it returns to its quarry and re-settles on it. That cuckoldy pimp in his living grave feels the falcon settle; then slowly, very slowly, under cover of the houbara’s feathers his hand searches for his victim’s feet. The hapless falcon, in dread of a robber eagle, eagerly busies itself with pluming and eating: its whole attention is directed to its food. Sooner or later some part of its foot or leg touches the hidden hand, and the freedom of the noble bird is gone. The dead man then comes to life and rises from his sandy grave.[240]

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Another Device.—There is another cunning device, which can be practised only during the season of the terrible east wind of Baghdad—“We take refuge in God from it.”[241] This wind blows with incessant severity for two to nine days at a time. Day and night it rages, ceasing not for one minute. None dare venture out in it; everything comes to a standstill. All sorts of wild birds, fearing to be swept away far from their hunting and feeding grounds, take refuge from the force of the wind by settling on the ground. Perhaps some luckless sportsmen, when out hawking, get caught in this wind, and by chance spy a bālābān seated on the sandy gritty soil. One of the party will go directly up-wind of it, and raising all the dust and sand[242] he can with his hands and feet, will scatter it on the wind. Under cover of this cloud of dust, which is carried by the wind on to the falcon, he quickly advances, stirring up the while all the sand he can with his hands and feet. The falcon’s eyes get filled with the sand: in vain it rubs them on its feathers: the sand-storm continues, while the man behind it ceases not advancing with rapidity. The falcon is first forced to close its eyes, but the sand stops up its nostrils, and it soon has no choice but to seek protection for its head under its wing. In this unsuspecting and helpless attitude it is secured by hand.

Author captures a Vulture.—Once I went on a pilgrimage[59] to Haẓrat-i Salmān-i Fārsī,[243] and intending to kill two birds with one stone took with me four or five chark͟hs and bālābāns that were trained to gazelle, and nine or ten mounted falconers. I started early in the morning, and expected to secure during the day five or six gazelles at least. We had gone about two farsak͟h[244] when the east wind began to rise. It gradually increased in force till about two hours before noon, by which time we had reached the very “mine”[245] of gazelle. To the right and left of us there was nothing but gazelle, but, on account of the wind, it was impossible to fly the hawks. Soon the air became darkened, and so strong was the wind that it could have borne aloft a thousand thrones of Solomon.[246] We were nearly lifted off our horses to be hurled far into the desert. There was nothing for it but to “mail”[247] the chark͟hs and bālābāns and carry them under our arms, or in the skirts of our robes. We were now in ground that is called Ḥawr Saʿda[248]: it is low-lying ground, void of dust or sand, for when the Tigris overflows its banks in the Spring, the hollow retains water, and grass and reeds spring up. This hollow was about two farsak͟h broad by six or seven long, and was a favourite feeding-ground of gazelle. The well-known medicinal herb[60] galingale[249] is produced here in abundance; hence the name of Ḥawr Saʿda given to the spot.

Well, as soon as we emerged from this ḥawr, we lost sight of the Arch of Ctsesiphon and the dome of Haẓrat-i Sulaymān. Though we knew the ground thoroughly, having hawked gazelle there hundreds of times, we completely lost our bearings and wandered about aimlessly and perplexedly, we knew not whither. At last we emerged on to the sandy desert, and realized that we had left the shrine of Sulaymān on our left. Our horses were unable to proceed, for their eyes and nostrils were soon choked with sand.

Suddenly a huge carrion vulture[250] dropped to earth and settled before us. I told my attendants to stop still while I circumvented it by the Arab method. I made a circuit and got up-wind of it, and assisted the wind in covering it with sand and dust. At last I reached the vulture and saw that the poor thing had tucked away its head, and was to all appearance asleep. I cast myself on it and secured it, and saw that its eyes and nostrils were so choked with sand that it could scarcely breathe. I made the Ābdār[251] carry it till we reached the shrine. Not having enough food for the hawks, I bought a fat young sucking-lamb,[252] and killed it. The liver and heart were given to the vulture, which, when the wind subsided, was duly released.

I could have captured gazelle by the same method had it not been for their sense of smell.

[61]

This little falcon is beyond all praise. There are three varieties, the dark, the light, and the yellow, the first being the best. No Persian falconer has yet found the nest of the merlin, nor is it known in what country it breeds. All I know is that, about two months after the beginning of Autumn, it is spread over the face of the land, and is then caught in nets by the bird-catchers.

Like the bālābān there are three kinds, the Ḥurr Ṣāfī, the Aḥmar Shāmī,[253] and the Lafīf. The dark variety, which is the Lafīf and has cheek-stripes,[254] is better than the Ḥurr Ṣāfī. Unlike the Saker, this falcon is somewhat forgetful by nature.

If you want to train a “cast”[255] of merlins to fly larks,[256] train them quickly, luring them three times or four times a day to a lure made of pigeons’ wings.[257] Now get a live lark, and for three days,—after the merlin has been made hot and excited by being called to the lure—tie the lark to the end of a long stick, and fly the hawk at that, making it stoop four or five times.[258] Then let the hawk take, and eat half of the lark. Do this three times a day, flying it after it has digested its meal.[259]

After the merlins are well entered to the lark at the end of the stick,[260] go out into the open country. Show them, by hand, a good lark, unruffled and strong on the wing; then let it fly, casting off both merlins after it.[261] They will stoop at it and take it. When they do, feed them up together. Do this for three or four days.

Now go into the open country and fly them at a wild lark, choosing some spot free from wells or gardens: for, if your hawk[62] chases a lark into a well, it will probably get destroyed; if it chases it into a garden, it will not only lose the lark, but lose itself. You require a clear open plain.

The quicker you train these little falcons the better, but with other hawks the contrary holds good: in training the latter, use deliberation.

Method of Snaring Larks.—I am certain the reader has been saying to himself, “Where am I to get all these live larks? Surely the author is wrong somewhere.” No, my friend, it is you that are wrong. Now listen to me while I tell you how to snare larks.

Get a long, light pole,[262] about eleven feet long, and bind to the end of it, a horse-hair noose[263] (of white horse-hair for choice) made of a single hair, and use white thread for the binding.[264] As soon as your merlin is keen on the lure, go out into the open country with an assistant. When you come across a lark, give the merlin to your assistant, and then move aside ten or fifteen paces. Now, alongside of the lark, lure the merlin to your fist. As soon as the lark spies the hawk, it will crouch on the ground, its eyes glued on the hawk. Now hand over the hawk to your assistant. Make him hold his hand high, and by lowering it and raising it cause the hawk to extend and flutter its wings, so that the attention of the lark may remain engrossed on it. Tell your man to go to the left of the lark and to stand about ten paces from it, making the hawk flutter all the time. Do you go to its right, and, advancing very slowly, extend the pole, slip the horse-hair noose on to the poor lark’s neck, and draw it to you, and—there is your “train.” This device is the invention of your humble servant. It is most successful in the Autumn and Winter months.

A lark, before a cast of merlins, gives a very pretty ringing flight. In the Spring, however, and even on warm days in the Winter,[265] they will not ring up.

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A very good female merlin will take “chukor,” “seesee,”[266] quail, woodcock,[267] and other small quarry.

Defect of Merlins.—Merlins are inveterate “carriers,”[268] a great defect in their character, and should therefore be flown as a “cast,” and not singly. Another defect is that, if allowed to get very hungry, they begin to tear their own feet; and if the falconer be inattentive, they will tear away the flesh till they reach the shank bone.[269] Once they learn this vice, the only remedy is to give them their freedom. The falconer must therefore be careful to keep them always in high condition, for otherwise they will not only not “ring up” well, but will also contract the vice just mentioned.

A good, young, merlin may be kept and moulted, but just as is the case of a young passage saker and an “intermewed”[270] one, an intermewed[271] merlin will not ring up as well as a young passage hawk. The young hawk is light in body, and ignorant as well; but after the moult it becomes not only heavy, but cunning also, and will give up the moment it sees that the lark it is chasing is very strong on the wing. A “haggard” bālābān,[272] however, will, in the hands of a skilful falconer, ring up better than a young passage bālābān.

There are two varieties of merlin. In one variety the immature and mature plumage are, even after many moults, the same. In the other, the plumage of the back, after the first moult, becomes blue-grey, while the cere and legs become bright yellow like amber. I have never been able to discriminate which kind it is that will remain the same, and which kind will assume the blue plumage and yellow cere.

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The hobby resembles the merlin somewhat, but is larger, darker in colouring, and prettier in appearance. It has long broad wings, dark in colouring. Its feet are small and yellow. In a wild state it kills larks and such-like small quarry, hunting well, like the merlin, but it is evil-natured and cowardly.[274] In the Shamīrānāt and in Māzandarān[275] it nests in the gardens.[276] Nestlings, however, are useless. The female is about the size of a shahin tiercel. It can be trained, but with much trouble. You can, however, train one easily to fly in company with a merlin, and make it kill by means of the merlin’s assistance. More than this is not to be expected of it.[277] If, as I say, you get a fine female passage falcon, call it to the lure and fly it at “trains” and wild quarry, in company with a merlin, but never bother yourself with an eyess.

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This “falcon” closely resembles the Indian Sparrow-Hawk,[279] but the young bird is smaller and darker in colouration. Also it has not the dark stripe under the chin.[280] The only difference between the two is that the Sangak is black-eyed while the Pīqū is yellow-eyed.[281]

In the jungle it preys chiefly on locusts and frogs, but occasionally kills a small wounded or diseased bird. It haunts “gardens,” and, like the hobby, nests in trees. However, it is a bird impotent and unvalued, except for its tail, which can be used for “imping”[282] that of a pīqū.

The “intermewed” bird and the nestling are identical in plumage, and cannot be distinguished from each other.

There are two species of kestril. One species is yellowish in colouration and is covered with very pretty spots and markings; the other is yellowish but without markings, whilst its claws are small and white.

The first species, the “black-clawed” kestril,[284] kills in a wild[69] state, sparrows, quails, starlings[285] and such small quarry, but as it is ill-tempered and slow of flight, falconers care little for it. It, however, serves several purposes.

First: In Bushire and the desert tract of Fārs[286] it is caught and trained as the Raven is trained by the Arabs.[287] A raven is caught and so trained to “wait” on, that it will circle above the head for half an hour. A fine cord about forty inches long is fastened to its legs having at the end a bunch of feathers the size of a sparrow. Thus prepared it is cast off to “wait on.” From a distance it has the appearance of some bird of prey attempting to seize a small bird, and this, arousing jealousy, attracts bālābāns and other birds of prey from a distance. Then, on the arrival of, say, a bālābān with the other birds, the raven settles, when the fowler lets fly a pigeon in front of the bālābān. The latter fancies this is the quarry the raven was chasing.[288] The moment it seizes the pigeon it is snared. Bālābāns are also caught with kestrils trained in this manner.[289]

Second: If you want to take passage sakers with an eyess saker (chark͟h), catch one or two kestrils in a du-gaza or sparrow-hawk net,[290] “seel” their eyes and fly them as “trains.” Next fly your eyess[291] at a wild bālābān: it will certainly not fail to take it.[292]

For an eyess saker that is being trained to take eagles and sakers, kestrils and buzzards[293] are necessary “trains.”

When giving a buzzard as a “train” the hind claw must be firmly bound back to the shank. Also for the first three or four [70]times meat must be tied to its back before it is shown to and released for the eyess. When the young hawk takes the “train,” she should be fed on freshly-killed pigeon or chicken flesh. It is not, however, necessary to tie back the hind claw of a kestril, as it is too weak to inflict an injury.

Third: the tail, especially that of the moulted and mature bird, is excellent for imping the broken tail-feathers of a sparrow-hawk.

Lesser Kestril.—As for the “White-clawed [the Lesser] Kestril” the only useful thing about it is its tail, which can be used for “imping.” In a wild state it preys on nothing but locusts and lizards.

In the country of Syria, on the way to Constantinople, I have observed this species nesting inside the rooms of houses, in the niches in the walls, and on the ledges[294] in the rooms. No one molests the birds. They fly in flocks[295] like pigeons. Whenever you see kestrils flying in a flock you may feel assured that they are the “white-clawed” species, for the black-clawed species never flies in flocks.

Training Greyhound Pup by means of the Common Kestril.—The Arabs of ʿUnayza and Shammar,[296] as I have myself witnessed, rear the nestling of the Common Kestril, and when it is “hard-penned,”[297] lure it with a lump of meat. As soon as it will somewhat come to this lure, they catch an antelope-rat or jerboa-rat, tie a cord to its leg, and fly the kestril at it. They next tie a long cord of ten or twelve ells in length to a rat’s leg, and then fly the kestril [71]at it from a distance. After that they break one leg of a jerboa, and let it go in front of a two months’ old greyhound pup, and then cast off the kestril at it. The rat is taken after a few stoops. Next a jerboa is loosed in front of two greyhound pups three or four months old.[298] The pups start in pursuit, and the kestril is then cast off. At one time the pups make a dash, at another the kestril makes a stoop, till at last the rat is taken.

After killing a few rats with broken legs, a sound rat is released, a fine stick, four fingers’ breadth in length, having previously been passed cross-ways through the ears. This stick hinders the rat from taking refuge in a hole, for of course two-months-old pups cannot, unaided, overtake and kill a kangaroo-rat in the open country. Well, the rat is let go, and the kestril and the pups give chase. It is exactly like hawking gazelle with a chark͟h. After about thirty or forty stoops and dashes, the rat is taken.

The whole object of this play is to teach the pups, while growing up, to recognize the chark͟h;[299] so that should a hawk be flown at a herd of even a thousand gazelle, the hounds will chase none but the one at which the hawk is stooping. In puppyhood the hound has learnt that without the assistance of the kestril it cannot overtake an antelope-rat, and hence it has learnt to watch the hawk; and gradually it becomes so knowing, that instead of at once starting in pursuit of the gazelle-herd when it is slipped, it will fix its gaze skywards, and wait on the movements of the chark͟h.

Amongst the “black-eyed” birds of prey must be classed a small sparrow-like bird, grey and black in colouring. In the Kurdish language it is called bāzūrī, and in Persian ālā güzkina.[300] In size it is somewhat larger than a sparrow: the wings are dark: the eyes have a dark line of antimony:[301] the claws and beak are black, sharp, and powerful. When trained, it kills with ease sparrows and the small tisks[302] found in the wheat and barley, in Spring. It also comes well to the lure from a distance.

There are two species. One grey and black with the antimony line under the eyes, and one yellowish. The former is decidedly the better.[303]

I have described to you the chief peculiarities of the “Yellow-Eyed” and the “Black-Eyed” birds of prey. I will now teach you a few matters that will make the masters of the Art of Falconry approve of this poor slave of the Shāh—May our souls be his sacrifice!

Term of Natural Life.—Know that the term of natural life of the birds of prey is considerable. In captivity they attain to twenty-five or thirty years at least—provided they remain in the possession of one man, a skilful falconer, and are not constantly changing hands. I myself kept a passage saker for twenty moults, and although it was not as good as it had been, still it continued to take quarry.

To distinguish the Age of a Hawk.—After a hawk has passed its fourth or fifth year, none can tell its age—except God and its owner. However, there are certain signs that mark a hawk of ten or fifteen years. First; it is short-winged.[304] Second; its feet and soles become full of wrinkles. Third; the two outside feathers of the tail, one on each side, called by the Arabs rudāfạ,[305] are shorter than the remainder, and the older the hawk the shorter these rudāfạ.[305]

Impossibility of Snaring Long-winged Hawks by Aid of a Lamp.—Never try to snare “black-eyed” hawks by aid of a lamp, for as soon as they see the light they will fly off. The “yellow-eyed,” however, with the exception of owls and birds that hunt by night, can be snared by means of a lamp, as will be described later.

Qualifications of a Falconer.—The first requisite in a falconer is patience. The second; that he be a sportsman and have a genuine love for his hawks, and fly them himself. Let him not [74]say:—“I will take a lot of chukor; my master will reward me;” or, “Such and such quarry is unlawful for food (ḥarām); I won’t fly at it. What is the use of taking ravens and eagles? I’ll hawk chukor and seesee, and take them to my master; he’ll have them roasted, and will eat them in front of the fire and will reward me.” This ass is an ignoramus, and cares naught for hawks. Does he not know that if a short-winged hawk is flown on level ground, and wedded to large quarry such as ravens and duck and ruddy shieldrake and such-like, that it will in the hills with the advantage of gravity fly at the poor chukor all the better?[306] His object should not be money and rewards. He must be fond of hawks and hawking; he must know his business; he must be at heart a sportsman. The third; that he be good-tempered, pleasant-spoken, and of a cheerful and cheery countenance, so that the Good God may grant him his daily bread in abundance, and the quarry may come to him of its own accord. Let him be clean of hand, clean in person, and observant of the ordained prayers, so that God, who knows all, may not send him and his hawk home in the evening empty-handed. When mounting, the falconer should repeat the “Four Qul” and the “Holy Verse,” which is the “Verse of the Throne,”[307] and then exhale the breath on the person, so that the Munificent God may shelter from evil, him and his companions, guard his hawk from the persecutions of eagles, and send him home at night with a full bag and a happy heart. These are the requisites for a sportsman.

Fourth; if you lose your hawk and despair of its recovery, then[75] with earnest sincerity repeat three times the Nād-i ʿAlī,[308] each time exhaling the breath towards the direction you imagine the hawk to be, and saying, “O God! by virtue of these words I adjure Thee to restore to me my lost hawk.” There is no doubt but that you will recover her instantly. This is my belief and my practice, and I have now in my possession two or three passage sakers seventeen or eighteen years of age. My son, these are my counsels: give ear to them, and bear them in your mind, and you will experience no ill.

Method of Snaring a Goshawk with the Aid of a Lamp.—Should you happen to see a goshawk (t̤arlān) settle on a tree towards sunset, keep a careful watch on it from a distance till three or four hours after dusk, and see that it is not disturbed. Then take a long light pole of sufficient length to reach the hawk, and firmly bind to one end a horse-hair noose; a span’s distance below the [76]noose fasten a lighted wax-candle. Take this pole and proceed alone towards the tree on which the goshawk is sleeping, till within thirty yards of it. Now, with noiseless steps, advance very slowly for ten yards; and then halt for seven or eight minutes: next extinguish the candle and remain in the dark for two or three minutes. Re-light the candle and advance ten yards more, very very slowly; and then halt for some minutes: then extinguish the candle and wait another two or three minutes in the dark. Re-light the candle, and, holding it aloft, advance stealthily to the foot of the tree.

Keep the lighted candle in front of the goshawk’s face. Now, my son, pull yourself together and keep your eyes open; let hand and foot be steady; don’t get flurried: think not you are after a goshawk. Say to yourself: “It is a leaf of a tree, or a barn-door fowl.” Don’t let your hand shake. This is the advice I give you: I cannot myself act up to it, nor do I believe that any falconer can. Well, hold the light[309] close to the goshawk’s breast. If she is asleep, head under wing, gently, ever so gently, stroke her breast with the horse-hair noose to awaken her, but have a care your nervous hand does not tremble but keeps the pole well away from her breast, or else she is off. Stroke her breast with the noose, ever so gently, till she withdraws her head from under her wing. Then pass the noose on to her neck, and pull her down to you.[310] On the spot, “seel” her eyes with blue[311] thread, using a fine needle,[312] and “mail”[313] her tightly.

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After treating the hawk as described at the end of the last chapter, keep her “mailed”[314] for an hour or two, and furnish her with jesses, leash, and halsband.[315] After two hours or so “un-mail” her, and carry her on the fist for about an hour, gently stroking her breast and wings the while. Then place her on her perch to rest.

Next morning at daybreak take her on the fist, and, as gently as possible stroking her breast and back,[316] carry her till four or five hours after sunrise. Use any device or trick you can to get her to feed; scratch her feet between the digits to induce her to eat. If she will eat, give her a small quantity of meat; but if she won’t, let her remain hungry till the afternoon[317] and then try again: if then she will eat, well and good; give her a full meal that she may remember it, and learn to look to you for food. If she won’t eat, on no account force meat down her throat, or this will become a habit with her. Again in the evening take her on the fist, her eyes being still seeled, and carry her for five or six hours,[318] stroking her and scratching her feet to induce her to eat. If still she won’t eat, it is of no consequence: set her down to rest for the night.

The next morning try her again in the same way: she will probably feed. However, some goshawks will sulk for three days, refusing all food. Don’t be alarmed if your hawk does so, for it is of no consequence;[319] she will eat on the fourth day.

A soon as she has learnt to eat freely with seeled eyes, whether on your fist or off it, slightly unseel them, i.e., loosen the seeling [80]thread so that she may see a little out of the tops of her eyes,[320] and feed her well, so. The next evening open her eyes a little more. The third evening unseel her eyes completely, and sit near a lamp with your back to the wall that none may pass to and fro behind you. This evening she must be on your fist for four or five hours. After that, carry her into a dark spot and place her on her perch to rest.

Early next morning take her up, and sit, back to the wall, in some quiet spot, where people can be seen at a distance. Near noon, feed her up for the day, and then set her on a perch in a place where people cannot pass to and fro, except at a distance. Two or three hours before sunset, take her on the fist again and carry her till two hours after nightfall, i.e., much less than on the previous night.

In the morning take her up as before. To-day you must feed her twice, giving her less in the morning and more in the evening.

During these few days you must on no account give her feathers or casting, for she will, from fear, retain them in her stomach, and her temperament will be upset.

On the sixth night you must carry her till midnight, stroking her at frequent intervals. By this time she will have become perfectly quiet. Then carry her to her perch, and set her down to rest.

Early next morning take her on the fist, and carry her in a place where no one can pass behind you. Then take her to some quiet, private spot, and place a live chicken or pigeon in her feet, and get her to seize it. Then cut the chicken’s throat and give her a little to eat. Try and induce her to step on to your fist, either from the ground or from her perch.

During these few days that you are giving her live birds, feed her while close to a hound,[321] so that she may get accustomed to the presence of such dogs. Tie a long cord to the leash, and placing her on an assistant’s fist induce her to fly a few paces to your fist. Do not give her live pigeons and chickens every day or she will learn to come to your fist only for the “pelt,”[322] and that is an error.[81] Call her rather to plain meat so that, should you in the field not happen to have a live bird about you, she will, the moment you raise your fist, come readily to a meat-lure. There is no harm if you kill in her feet a live bird, say every eight or ten days.

When she is thoroughly trained to the lure, i.e., when she will without a “creance”[323] come with eagerness to your fist, starting without hesitation from any spot where you may place her, cast her on the ground and play with her so as to teach her to run round and round you, so that when, in the field, she puts a quarry into a bush[324] she may run round the bush just as you have taught her to run round you, so that by this means the chukor she has “put in” may not trick her by making off from the far edge of the bush. The object of this instruction on the ground is to teach her to run round the bush and block the quarry after she has “put it in,” and then to rise and take up a commanding position on a tree[325] to watch the bush from thence, so that the partridge escape her not.

The more familiar you make your hawk, and the keener you make her on the lure,[326] the better. Now, if you have trained[327] your hawk in less than forty days, you have hurried her training, and “Hurry is of the Devil, but Deliberation is from God.”[328] Be not overhasty or you will spoil her. Such and such a falconer is sure to vaunt his skill, boasting that he has trained and flown his hawk in fifteen days. He has erred and blundered: he is not a lover of a hawk but a lover of the pot;[329] he is one who would not sacrifice one[82] partridge for a hundred goshawks. As for you, your hawk must not be trained[330] in less than forty days.[331]

When your hawk is trained, that is when she is perfect at the lure and accustomed to hounds, horses, and mounted men, go, the day before you intend flying her at wild quarry, into the open country and lure her from a distance with a chicken two or three months old. As soon as she comes, let her take it, and feed her up on it for the day, giving her feathers and bones, that she may throw up her casting[332] early the following morning.

Although it is the custom of many Ostringers[333] to give to a goshawk, the day before she is to be flown, washed meat—that is meat cut small, cast into luke-warm water and given with a lot of water—still in my opinion the practice is wrong; for if a hawk be alternately given washed meat one day and flown the next, and habituated to this custom, the custom becomes second nature to her. Now suppose your friends and acquaintances, together with their falconers, some fifty persons in all, have settled to go for a ten days’ hawking trip to a certain spot where there is an abundance of chukor and other quarry, and have invited you to join them, you ought, during these short ten days, to hawk every day. However, your hawk will only give you five days’ sport, for you have habituated her to fly on alternate days, after she has been “set;”[334] she certainly will not now fly every day. Do not therefore teach her this custom. Give her the day before you go hawking, not washed meat but a chicken as I have said, for a chicken’s flesh has little nourishment and will “set” her as though she had been given washed meat. By giving her a chicken you will not accustom her to washed meat; and when on that ten days’ outing you will not[83] have to stay at home and twiddle your thumbs.[335] Another objection to washed meat is that your hawk gradually loses condition.

To resume. After luring your hawk from a distance and killing the chicken under her and feeding her upon it, set her on the edge of some water: she will perhaps drink and bathe,[336] and oil,[336] and preen her feathers, and so be in fettle for to-morrow’s flight. One hour before sunset take her on the fist.

(My son, never, never, go up to a new hawk without meat in your hand.[337] Always approach a new, sitting hawk very, very slowly, and sit down to one side of her. Do not look at the hawk’s eyes, for a man’s eyes and face have a terrifying effect on hawks, especially when the gazer’s head is crowned with a Turcoman cap. Take meat in your hand and get her to jump from the perch to your fist, and let her eat one or two beakfuls: then carry her away. Falconer, listen: should you ever require to go to your hawk in the dark to take her on the fist, having no light with you, talk to yourself in a low tone the while; for she will recognize your voice and not be scared).

In short take her on your fist an hour before sunset, and carry her till an hour after dark. If you ride about with her on a quiet horse, so much the better. After that set her down to rest for the night.

(There should be a light in your hawk’s room all night that she may feel secure. It is a mistake to keep a goshawk in the dark, for goshawks are ever fearful.)

Very early next morning take up your own hawk, and be afield before the eagles have begun their daily questing.[338] You must not have with you more than one dog, well-mannered and well-trained. Let your hawk have a beakful or two[339] of meat to whet her appetite[84] and make her keen. Now go into a good spot, mark down a chukor that will give a fairly easy flight,[340] and, saying “Oh God! my hope is in Thee,” cast off your hawk. My son, though falconers and sportsmen do not approve of this, yet I approve it: act as I instruct thee and thou wilt experience no ill.

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.

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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[86] “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[87] 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[88] 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.

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.[89] 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[90] 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[91] 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.

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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.

A fourth; your hawk learns to take every quarry at which she is flown: should you fail to find partridges you need not return with an empty bag, tired and cross; for you can fly her at hubara, ravens, stone-plovers, etc., instead.

My son, teach your hawk the habits that I have described.[93] Also accustom her to drink freely;[389] accustom her after each meal to drink a beakful or two. Always, about two hours after dark, offer her water in a cup held close in front of her; try to induce her[390] to take a few beakfuls, as by so doing she will digest easily.[391] Accustom her to drinking at least two or three times a day, either from a cup or from a stream. If she drink only one beakful, it is an advantage, especially at night. Drinking keeps her in health.

Now my son, know that it is the pride and glory of a falconer to train long-winged, not short-winged hawks; for the natural quarry of the former is rats, black-breasted sand-grouse, pigeons, duck, and small birds; but when falcons fall into the hands of a competent falconer, they are required to take common cranes, geese, and gazelles. If the falconer be not skilled, how can such quarry be taken by the falcon? As for goshawks, their natural quarry in the hills is partridges and pigeons, and in the hands of the falconer they do no more than kill partridges: it is merely incumbent on the falconer to familiarize them with horses, dogs and men, so that after “putting in” they may take stand and not make off.

Now I, the slave of the Royal Court, was once in attendance on His Majesty (may our souls be his sacrifice) in the hills of (——?)[392] in Māzenderān. One day a flight of snow-cock[393] rose suddenly in front of the August Presence of the King of Kings. I had on my fist a female t̤arlān of two moults. The moment the covey, consisting of twenty or thirty birds,[394] rose, I cast off my hawk, and she promptly took one cock in the air.[395] I hastily dismounted and gave her the brain only; I did not feed her up. Meanwhile the “Qibla[396] of the Universe” dismounted and became busy with his breakfast. I took the snow-cock into the Presence: it was examined and I was complimented. I remounted and rode on a short distance, when three more snow-cock rose in front of me.[94] I flew the same hawk and took one,[397] and the Shāh had not finished breakfast when I bore it into the Presence. He applauded me and bestowed on me a shawl, for it is most unusual for a goshawk to succeed in taking a snow-cock. A goshawk may indeed take one straight away, in the air, just as it has risen,[398] but she cannot make one “put in,” for a snow-cock will fly for miles.[399]

Should a passage falcon with “seeled”[401] eyes come into your possession the first thing is to examine it carefully and classify it. Having decided on the race to which the falcon belongs, fit her with some suitable name such as Ṣult̤ān, Ẓarg͟hām, Fāris, Shabīb, Ḥabīb, Maḥbūb, Shahāb, Badrān, etc.[402] Next fit her with an old hood that is soft and easy, one that will not, by hurting her eyes, make her hood-shy.[403] Let her eyes remain seeled under the hood for three days. Every day when you feed her, call her name. On the third or fourth day, i.e., as soon as she has learnt to feed freely, which she will show by searching eagerly for food when you mention her name, unseel her eyes about two hours to sunset, and then rehood her. Call her name, and when she bends her hooded head in search of food, give her a mouthful or two. Then stroke her on the breast, the thighs, and the wings, and again remove the hood that she may see daylight, and quickly replace it. Continue this treatment till half an hour before sunset. Then set[95] her down and leave her till after the evening prayer.[404] Then again take her on the fist and sit near the lamp, with your back to the wall, so that none may come behind you and your hawk. Again call her name, and when she lowers her head reward her with a mouthful. Stroke her as before. Carry her thus for three or four hours. After that, set her on her perch for the night, fastening the hood tight that she may not cast it during the night.

Early next morning, before sunrise, take the hawk on your fist;[96] sit with a few friends near a lamp or a fire sipping your tea or coffee, and perform your prayers. Every now and then remove the hood for about five seconds, and then rehood. For about three days feed her under the hood, calling her name. Now at early sunrise,[405] on the morning of the third or fourth day, take just sufficient meat for one meal; well wet your hawk under her wings,[406] wash her nostrils, letting a little water enter them, and set her perch[407] in a quiet place in the sun where none can disturb you, and seat yourself near on the ground. Now remove the hood and handle her a little, stroking her breast, head, and neck; then slowly carry your fist close to her perch and induce her to step on to the perch of her own accord.[408] Hold the leash in your hand, and occasionally draw it tight gently to induce her to “rouse.”[409] She is sure, after one of these rousings, to commence oiling her feathers.[410] When you see that she has carried her beak to the oil-bottle[411] near her tail, preparatory to oiling her feathers, you must sit absolutely still; do not pull the leash; keep a guard even over the way you breathe, and let her oil her feathers to her heart’s content.

If she oils her feathers very quickly and then rouses, it is a sign she is well-manned.[412] If after oiling and rousing, she a second time applies her beak to her oil-bottle, it is a sign that she is both well-manned and well-plucked.

Let her remain on the perch a little longer while she preens[410] [97] and straightens[413] her feathers and again rouses with vigour. Immediately she rouses, take in your hand the meat you have ready, and calling her name, induce her to step on to your fist, and reward her as before. Do this a third time, but this time try and induce her to jump to your fist the length of her leash or less. Then call her name and reward her by a good feed. Now hood her and place her on the ground. Call her name and strike on the ground with your hand, in front of her.[414] If she advances even two finger breadths towards the sound, it is sufficient. Reward her by letting her pull and eat two or three mouthfuls of meat, and while she is eating pull off the hood and let her finish her meal and enjoy herself. She will by this means learn that no one wishes to harm her, and that being tame is not at all a bad thing. After feeding her take a small piece of wool, or cotton-wool, and clean her nostrils.[415] Then fasten the braces of the hood tight, and set her on her perch in the shade.[416]

Anecdotes of a Baghdad Falconer.—There is a well-known story of a famous falconer of Baghdad, named Sayyid Adham. For a long time he was blessed with no offspring, but at length the Lord of the World bestowed on him one son. At the time of our story, the boy had arrived at the age of two years, and had conceived a great affection and fascination for a certain bālābān, the property of his father.

A hawk-catcher[417] had captured a fine bālābān-i aḥmar-i shāmī, a young passage falcon, and had carried it as a “present”[418] to Dā,ūd, the Pasha of Baghdad.

Sayyid Adham, the Grand Falconer,[419] was summoned and the hawk made over to him with directions to train it to gazelle. He took it to his home, named it “Meteor,” and unseeled its eyes on the third day.

In the morning, he was seated at the edge of the sunshine,[420] his new hawk preening her feathers, etc., in the manner I have just described. He was, of course, watchful that his unmanned hawk should not be suddenly scared; for you must know that, should a new hawk be suddenly scared, it is difficult to efface from her memory[421] the remembrance of the fright, and she is perhaps spoilt for ever after. While the hawk was engaged in her preening, Sayyid Adham was suddenly horrified to see his small two-year-old son toddling towards him. Quietly intervening himself between the boy and the hawk he beckoned to the former to come to him. As soon as the child came up to him, he deftly took his head under his arm and kept it there till the hawk, having finished her toilet,[99] was fed and rehooded. He released his son and found that the poor child had been suffocated:—

Though I myself never saw the Sayyid,[422] I was well acquainted with his immediate descendants. In training bālābān to gazelle they had no equal, and were justly proud of their skill. They used to pride themselves on the incident narrated above as being a proof of their father’s devotion to sport.

Bet with the Pasha.—It is also well known that Sayyid Adham once laid a wager with the Pasha of Baghdad that he would, within twelve days, fly at gazelle, with success, a certain newly caught bālābān. He did so; on the twelfth day, in the presence of the Pasha, the bālābān took its first gazelle in noble style, and the Sayyid his wager. Only a falconer knows the difficulty of taking a wild gazelle with a passage falcon within twelve days of its capture.[423]

Concerning these two matters God is the Knower[424]—but all the old men[425] of Baghdad bore constant testimony to their truth.

Training the Passage Saker to Gazelle.—Procure the head of a freshly-killed gazelle. Excite your hawk’s appetite by calling her name, and then remove her hood that she may instantly jump from your fist to the head. Let her tear off and eat two or three mouthfuls of flesh; then seize the gazelle-head and agitate it, so that the excited and hungry hawk may “bind” the tighter. After this let her feed a little. You must practise her daily in this manner, twice or thrice by day, and twice by night. Each morning set aside the exact amount of meat that she should receive in the twenty-four hours, and feed her from that, otherwise in the irregular feedings you will lose count of the quantity she has eaten, and will in consequence overfeed her. After making her play with the head, and after giving her to eat the quantity fixed for her, remove her, and hood her, and carry her off to the bazar.[427]

In the bazar sit in some spot with your hawk’s back to the wall, so that nothing can come behind her. Now remove her hood that, by viewing the varied throng of men and horses, she may rid her of her natural fear. Nay, more than this; you must give your man a bit of meat the size of a pea and let him, as he passes, hand it to her, so that she may look with the eye of expectation at each passer-by and say to herself, “Here comes some one with meat for me.” Now hood her and “carry” her. Never for one moment let her be off the fist.[428] The Old Masters have ruled that the falconer may, when seated on the ground, place his hawk on the point of his knee,[429] but that with this exception she must know no other perch than his fist. Great stress have they laid on the observance of this rule: “Break it,” they have said, “and let your hawk go wild.” Do thou act likewise, my son, and keep thy hawk ever on thy fist. During the twenty-four hours, she will indeed get four or five hours’ sleep.[430]

An hour after nightfall, make her as before “play” with the deer’s head. Do this by lamp light and while in the company of your friends. Let her eat on the head a little meat, a quantity [102]about the size of a filbert. Then take her up and carry her. At one time unhood her and place her on her perch in front of you; at another shake her jesses to arouse her and induce her to “rouse,” and look about, and take notice. Now after her preening, hood her and take her on the fist. Anon call her name while she is hooded, and reward her response by a morsel of meat, so that she may thus learn to connect her name with food. In short, you must till four hours after nightfall, keep her on your fist or on your knee, in a crowded room where people come and go continually.[431] Just before you retire for the night take her up, carry her near a lamp and make her play with the gazelle-head, agitating it well. If the head has no meat on it, have a few small bits of other meat ready, and place them on the gazelle’s eyes in such a manner that the hawk may of her own accord pull out the meat and eat it. Hood her while she is still “binding” to the head, and draw tight the braces[432] of the hood, so that there is no possibility of the hood coming off during the night; then remove her and replace her on her perch, and leave her for the night. The remembrance of the gazelle-head and of her food will remain in her mind, and keep her keen and excited for another hour. She will not sleep at all, or if she does, it will not be for more than two hours.

Rise at daybreak[433] and take her on your fist, for she must not be allowed to even try to “cast”[434] while her hood is on, and if she be hindered from casting she will fall sick. Hence trouble yourself and relieve her.

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[The author here cites some copy-book maxims on early rising: these are not translated.] ... Lastly, by early rising you will be in the field before the eagles are on their prowls.[435]

After she has “cast,” proceed to feed her on the head, and to “carry” her in the bazaar, etc., etc., as on the previous day; and continue this treatment till she is thoroughly trained to the gazelle-head.

Now as soon as she thoroughly understands and is keen on the gazelle’s head, procure a live fawn and bind firmly to one of its hind[436] legs an iron ring; then take a fine strong cord about twelve yards[437] long, pass one end through this ring and tie it to the opposite foreleg.[436] Next, with fine cord, bind between the fawn’s ears a lump of tough meat, one to two pounds[438] in weight.

In the morning call your hawk first to the dead head as before, agitating it well, etc., and hood her on the head. Now produce the live fawn and make it lie down. Call your hawk by name and then remove her hood. In accordance with her daily and nightly teaching she will at once “bind” to the meat on the fawn’s head.[439] You must instruct your assistant, who has hold of the fawn’s tether, to hold his hand high, so that the fawn cannot toss or shake its head. Let your hawk tear a mouthful or two of meat and then remove her. Let her fly and “bind” to the meat on the fawn’s head a second time, and let her eat a little of it. Then hood her and remove her, and handle her, etc. (You must so feed her that she will be fit by the evening to be again flown at the dead head and the live fawn.) Now carry her to the house and wash her nostrils with a little luke-warm water. Remove her hood and let her preen and rouse till evening.

In the evening repeat the morning’s lesson and do this for[104] three days. On the second and third day, however, after making the fawn lie down, you must get your assistant to drag it slowly in this position on the ground. Then while it is moving you must fly her at it, at the “crouching” fawn.

On the fourth day you must fly her at the fawn standing. First call her, in the morning, to the dead head and play with it, etc., etc., as on previous occasions. Now place the duly prepared fawn in a standing position in front of you. Fly your hawk at it as before, but instruct your assistant that the moment the hawk “binds” he must pull the cord and cast the fawn. Repeat this lesson in the evening.

You must be careful during these lessons that you do not overfeed your hawk and make her too fat. To avoid such an accident, you must, each morning, weigh and put aside the exact quantity of meat she is to be given during the day. As for the meat on the fawn’s head, it must be so tough that your hawk can only, with difficulty and delay, tear off and swallow a small mouthful: on no account must it be the tender meat from the backbone.[440]

In short you must first fly your hawk three days in the manner described, i.e., at the “crouching” gazelle, and then three days at the standing gazelle. Next you must fly her three days at the gazelle in motion, its head being still garnished with meat. The moment the hawk “binds,” the cord must be pulled and the gazelle made to fall. Fly her twice in the morning and twice in the evening.

Next, after this nine days’ training, you must instruct your assistant to drive the deer in front of him at a quickened pace, he himself running behind. When the gazelle is about twenty paces distant, you must let go your hawk. As soon as the hawk reaches and “binds,” your assistant must pull the cord and cast the gazelle as before. Give the hawk a little meat, hood her, remove her, and then fly her a second time from a rather longer distance; feed her on the head, hood and remove her; but you must not give her so much meat that she will not be fit to fly again in the evening. For three days you must fly her at the driven fawn, in the manner just described; but every day increase, by twenty paces, the distance from which she is cast off at the fawn.

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Now, during this twelve days’ training, you must gradually decrease the size of the lump of meat that is bound on to the live fawn’s head, so that at last no meat is visible, i.e., you must bind on the fawn’s head only a small bit of dry hard meat the size of a filbert, or a portion of the dried neck of a chicken.

You must next, taking the same poor fawn that you have been using all along as a “train,”[441] go out into the open country. The tether must be removed from the fawn’s leg, and the fawn must be in the keeping of your falconer, who should be mounted, and at a distance from you of say a hundred paces. First you must call your hawk to the same old dead and dried gazelle-head, agitating it well as before. While your hawk is “binding” to it in a state of hungry excitement, rehood her. With you there must be a quiet and obedient greyhound. Now order your mounted falconer to release the fawn with its head to the wind, and to gallop after it. You, having meanwhile mounted, must now unhood the hawk.

Now at this point there is an accident to be guarded against, an accident that often happens at this stage of the training. A plucky impetuous hawk, suddenly unhooded, may in her excitement bind to the head of the horse[442] on which you are mounted; therefore you must keep your eyes fixed on those of the falcon, and release her only when you perceive that she has spied the fawn and intends flying at it.[443]

As soon as the falcon has ten yards’ start of you, slip the greyhound[444] after her. The falcon will arrive, stoop at and bind to[106] the fawn’s head, and the greyhound will come up and pull down the fawn. You must make in, secure the fawn’s legs, and cut its throat. Let your falcon tear the eyes and tongue a little (for that small bit of dried flesh on the head contains no reward), and then cut the fawn’s throat and feed her up.[445] Give her only such a quantity of flesh that at sunset she will still have in her crop[446] a quantity of meat the size of a walnut. Hood your falcon and return home.

The dead gazelle should be tied under the belly of a horse, and while riding home have the horse led in front of you. Twice, on the way, remove the hawk’s hood that she may view the gazelle and recognize that that was her quarry, and that from the flesh of that quarry she was fed.[447]

When you reach home, with warm water cleanse your falcon’s nostrils from blood, and wash off any blood stains from her feathers. Unhood her and let her “rouse and preen.” After her preening, take her up, hood her, and carry her till sunset. (You must now no longer call her in the evening to the dead gazelle’s head as on former evenings, for her training is near its completion.) Then set her down[448] and let her rest till the morning.

Now, before dawn, take her up so that she may cast while on your fist. Take a sīr[449] or less of good lamb and wash it well in warm water until it becomes bloodless and white. To-day the hawk need not be lured or called: she should be fed on her perch. If your hawk is fat, give her at sunset, as a “casting,” a little lamb’s wool well wetted: if lean, give her chicken feathers, or a little of the skin and fur of a gazelle. To-night, too, let her rest on her perch.

At dawn take her up, so that she may cast on your fist. About an hour after dawn, go out into the open country, taking with you a couple of quiet trusty greyhounds, as well as a brisk and lively[107] gazelle. As before, call the hawk to the dead gazelle-head, agitating it as on previous occasions, etc., etc. The live gazelle should be released at a distance of five hundred paces, your assistant falconer galloping after it as before. The hawk should next be unhooded and cast off, and when she has flown about ten yards, the greyhounds should be slipped. The hawk will reach the gazelle and make one or two stoops before the greyhounds arrive and pull down the gazelle. You must make in quickly and secure the hind legs of the gazelle, so that the falcon, which will have bound to the gazelle-head, may blood herself well on its head and eyes.[450] Then, cut the gazelle’s throat and feed the hawk, giving her just so much food as will leave a quantity the size of a walnut still in her crop[451] at sunset. Her nostrils, etc., must be cleansed as before.

It is no longer necessary to keep the hawk hooded at night. Let her sleep unhooded.

You must now carry the hawk till two hours after nightfall and then set her down to rest.[452]

Take note of your hawk’s action when flown at these last two gazelles. If she makes three or four stoops at the head before binding, it is a sign that she has risen too much in condition: if she makes no stoop, but binds immediately on reaching, it is a sign that she is somewhat low in condition: if she makes one stoop only, or two stoops, and then binds, she is in her proper condition. Now if she be too fat, you must, by feeding her for two days on washed meat, lower her condition. If she be too low, you must fly her for two more days at a live gazelle, cast on the ground as on the first day, and as soon as she binds, you must stealthily substitute a freshly-slaughtered white lamb or white kid: or failing these a white chicken, placing the flesh of the chicken’s breast over the gazelle’s head. Feed up your hawk on the warm flesh. In two days she will regain her condition.

[108]

On the following day, again give washed meat[453] in the manner described above. On the day after, fly her at a gazelle that is as stout and brisk as a wild one. For this go into the open country as before, and first call your hawk to the head of the dead gazelle, agitating it as on previous occasions, etc., etc. This time the gazelle must be freed at a distance of a thousand yards, and your assistant must gallop after it. Cast off your hawk, and when she has got a start of ten or fifteen yards, slip the greyhounds, and gallop. Your hawk will make one or two stoops before the greyhounds arrive to pull down the gazelle. Make in, cut the gazelle’s throat, feed the hawk, and treat her in other respects as before.

On the day after this she must be keenly “set” by being given well-washed meat. At sunset give her a casting of feathers. On the following morning start from your house about two hours before dawn, and let your hawk throw up her casting while you are on your way to your destination. Repeating the four Qul and the verse of the Throne,[454] breathe the sacred words over yourself and over your hawk.

You must early that morning mark down a single half-tame gazelle.[455] After marking it down, call your falcon to the dead gazelle-head and agitate, etc., etc., as before. Then rehood her and go after the wild gazelle. The nearer you get to it the better. Unhood the falcon, and as soon as she spies the gazelle and shows an inclination to give chase, cast her off and shortly after slip the greyhounds.

Most probably you are wondering why you should not first slip the greyhounds and then cast off the falcon behind them. Now in this thought you err, for your falcon is probably full of courage [109]and eagerness, and her training has so excited her that she might bind to a greyhound instead of to the gazelle, and so be spoilt for ever. For this reason you must first, when there is nothing ahead of her but the gazelle, cast off your hawk; and if it please God, with the help of the hounds, she will take it.

On no account must you, this first day, fly your hawk at two gazelle in company. You must either fly her at a single gazelle or at three together. Doubtless you wonder why you can cast her off at three gazelle but not at two? Let me explain.

Two gazelle together will be either two fawns that have grown up together after their dam has been destroyed by some accident, or else a couple, male and female; or possibly they may be dam and young; in any case domestic affection will prevent them separating. Your hawk, being still raw and inexperienced,[456] or rather quite ignorant,[457] will stoop, first at one and then at the other, while the greyhounds, being trained and experienced, will chop and change, always making for the gazelle at which the hawk stoops. Your hounds, tired out, will fall behind and “get left,” and the hawk, without their assistance being unable to take the deer, will get lost. Should you happen to regain sight of her, you will find it difficult to lure her; if successful in luring her, the labour of twenty days will have been lost. However, a single gazelle by itself is the same as the hand-train[458] that you have all along been training her to, and this whether it be a male or a female. If there are three gazelle together, your falcon will single out[459] one and stoop at it; and as soon as she does so, the remaining two will make off together in company, while the greyhounds will only follow the single remaining gazelle at which your hawk is stooping. Now be warned and do as I tell you.

Should the gazelle be taken, feed her up, etc., as on previous occasions and return home. Should, however, any accident happen; should your falcon get tired out and the greyhounds get “left,” or should an eagle appear, then act as before; or if you have the carcass of a gazelle with you, cast your falcon at its head[110] and give her a very light meal, together with a “casting” from the skin; feed her so that she will “cast” early the following morning. If it please God she will not fail next morning. Should she, however, be again unsuccessful, you must feed her up well and let her rest for two or for three days.

On the third day, feed her on the head of a live gazelle, giving her only a light meal. On the fourth day, fly her in the open country at a single bright and active[460] gazelle, but so act that she cannot tell that the gazelle is not a wild one. Kill the gazelle under her and act as before.

The next day “set” her by giving her washed meat, and the day after fly her at a wild gazelle. She certainly—please God—will not fail.

I will now, my pupil, describe to you the method of training the nestling chark͟h[462] to eagles.[463]

In one point the nestling chark͟h excels the rest of the black-eyed race: it can take eagles, the rest cannot.[464]

When you first take the eyess from the eyrie, feed her well, that she may grow fat and stout and strong, and may, by taking her quarry in style, exhibit all her pride and power.

Now when the constellation of Canopus rises,[465] take her up,[111] hood her and carry her: train her after the manner that falcons are always trained, until she obeys the lure and comes to it readily from any spot where she may be placed.

Now lower her condition a little: let her lose just a little flesh. Procure a young Egyptian vulture[466] and bind some meat on its back. Twice daily, in the cool of the morning and of the evening, show it to her and then let it fly[467] in such a manner that your hawk may take it. If you are unable to procure a young Egyptian vulture, get a “black”[468] buzzard, or failing a black one a “yellow” one, but in any case you must bind the hind claw[469] to the “tarsus.”[470] Fly your hawk at this “train,” twice in the morning and twice in the evening,[471] and feed her up on it.

Should you be able to procure a second “train” of any of the three birds mentioned, then on the third day cut the throat of the first “train.” Be careful, however, to conceal its head, for your hawk must learn to bind only to the back. After killing the “train” and feeding your hawk on the meat that is tied to its back, cut open the back, and let your hawk eat a little of the exposed flesh.[472] She must not see the flesh of any other part except the back. During these days that you are entering your hawk to the “hand-train,”[473] as you increase the distance at which you release the train, you must decrease the amount of meat that is tied to its back, till at last no meat at all is left and your hawk binds to the ungarnished back of the “train.”

[112]

The two[474] uppermost flight-feathers in each wing of the birds mentioned above—the feathers called yār māliq by the Turks[474]—are broad and large. Take these feathers, two on each side, and placing them on top of each other bind the garnishing meat to them, so that the meat will be conspicuous during flight.

After you have killed the train and fed the hawk, you must, by giving her washed meat,[475] “set” her as previously described. Then go out into the open country and find a young Egyptian vulture, which in colouration resembles a young eagle, and fly your hawk at it. She will surely take it.[476] Kill it and feed your hawk well.[477]

“Set” your hawk the next day; and the day after that, go out and find a būq-k͟hura,[478] which has before been described as the most ignoble of the eagles. Get close to it, and so cast off your hawk that by the time the eagle has risen from the ground, your chark͟h will have reached it and bound to its back. With all haste make in and secure the būq-k͟hura, and, killing a dark-coloured chicken, present its flesh from underneath the wing of the būq-k͟hura, and so feed your hawk; but feed her sparingly. Release the būq-k͟hura[479] from the claws of the chark͟h and keep it by you alive.

On the morrow when your hawk is hungry, go out into the open country. Bind the hind claw of the būq-k͟hura to its shank, and let it fly, giving it a long start. Then unhood[480] and cast off[113] your hawk. She will certainly take it. Kill the būq-k͟hura and feed the hawk.

Now again “set” your hawk and fly her at a wild būq-k͟hura, feeding her up when she takes it. This you must do three or four times.[481]

Of one thing you must be careful: during these seven or eight days that you are flying your hawk and feeding her on warm flesh, take care that she does not become fat and get above herself.

After taking with her four or five būq-k͟hura, fly her at one of the black eagles that have no spots or markings.[482] Next fly her at a spotted ā,īna-lī eagle. After she has taken one of the latter, you can fly her at any species you choose. Should the eagle you are going to fly her at be of a large species (such as the karlak, or the kūjīkān, or the “moon-tailed eagle,” all three of which are the largest of the eagle species), it can, by the cries and shouts of your horsemen, be made so to lose its head as to become incapable of defending itself.

Supposing, for instance, you spy an eagle seated on the ground in a good open plain where there are neither small water-courses nor hillocks[483]—a spot where you can gallop without caution or delay—make the eagle face the wind[484] and gallop on to it,[485] and placing your trust on Almighty God, cast off your chark͟h. The eagle will see the hawk making for it but will not conceive the possibility of the hawk’s attacking it, for, poor thing, it is ignorant of the trickery of man. Calmly and leisurely it will spread its wings saying to itself, “This chark͟h, whose dog is it that it should approach me?”

If the eagle be a large strong female, it will certainly carry the chark͟h for about a thousand[486] paces, but if a weak tiercel it will not[114] drag it more than half that distance. You must gallop hard and keep close up to or under the eagle, until it tires and settles on the ground. It will then run, flapping and trailing its wings like a hunted chicken that is tired out. You must all pursue it with shouts and cries.

As soon as the eagle takes to running like a chicken, one horseman must detach himself and intercept it in front. Now when that son of a dog[487] sees that it cannot fly, that its path is blocked in front, and that shouts and yells arise on all sides of it, it will have no recollection of the chark͟h that has fastened on to its back: from rage and bewilderment it will drive its talons into the ground. Now, my pupil, on no account must you treat this son of a dog like other quarry. Do not in your excitement cast yourself upon it. On no account! on no account do so—unless you seek your own destruction. As soon as the eagle has convulsively clutched the ground, you must dismount in all haste, and approaching it from behind firmly place your long boot on its back just between the shoulders, and so render it defenceless. Then cautiously advance your further hand from behind it and firmly grasp its legs, keeping one leg on the eagle the while. Then cut its throat, split open its breast, bring out the heart, and feed your hawk. You must know that the flesh of eagles is greasy and indigestible, so do not overfeed your hawk or she will fall ill.[488] You must not imagine that an eagle’s flesh is the same as a pigeon’s; so feed her lightly:—

The next time you go out, fly your hawk at any species of eagle you like.

Now you must understand that although the hawk does, temporarily, cripple the eagle, yet it is owing to the screams and yells of the riding party that the eagle loses its wits and gets taken. If you want to test this, fly your hawk at an eagle as[115] though you were flying a goshawk at a partridge, and ride slowly and quietly after the quarry. Note how the eagle will with its foot sweep the hawk off its back while exclaiming:—

The awe and fear inspired by man is greater than that inspired by any animal, and especially terrifying is the human voice. God has given to all his creatures, birds, beasts, etc., a weapon of defence for their safety, and man’s weapons are his voice and the dread his presence inspires; every thing that creeps, or crawls, or flies, even the lion, flees from the sound[490] and terror of man—how much more so the eagle. The eagle is captured only by the artifice of the falconer: for what sort of a dog is the chark͟h to master the eagle?

This sport with the chark͟h and eagle must be pursued in the plains: in hilly country it is impossible.

Eyess Shahin and Eagles.—The eyess shahin is capable of being trained to eagles, but as it is small and delicate, it is not employed for this quarry.

The system of training the nestling chark͟h[492] to gazelle differs from that previously described for the passage saker.[493]

[116]

In the beginning of the Autumn you must, with your eyess, take a large number of hubara bustard so that she may become adroit and lose her rawness. As your hawk is a nestling and hence without any experience whatever, you must, after getting her to kill one or two domestic fowls, enter her by a train of a live hubara.[494]

You must first seel the hubara’s eyes, so that it may not puff itself up and drive away the young hawk,[495] which might thereafter conceive a permanent dread of this quarry. “Seel” the eyes of the train and let it run[496] for about forty paces, and then cast off your chark͟h. She will approach it stealthily[497] and seize it. As soon as she seizes it, give her a small quantity of meat; remove her and rehood her.

In the evening slightly loosen the thread with which the hubara’s eyes are seeled, so that it can just see out of the top of its eyes.[498] When the chark͟h flies towards the hubara, the latter, spying her out of the tops of its eyes, will puff itself out for the attack; but when the hawk arrives close and drops to the ground, she will no longer be visible, and the hubara will therefore not charge her. When the hawk seizes the hubara, again give her a small quantity of meat.

On the next day unseel half of the hubara’s eyes, so that at one time it may puff itself out ready for attack, and at another lose sight of its enemy. Let the hubara get some distance, and then unhood the hawk and let her go. As soon as she binds to the hubara, cut its throat and feed up the hawk.

On the next day give another “train” of hubara, but this time with unseeled eyes. Let it get a long distance off before you unhood your hawk. Kill it, and feed up the hawk on its flesh.

[117]

Although it is no feat for a falconer to take hubara[499] (for any inferior hawk will kill this quarry), still in the training of the eyess saker that is destined for gazelle, it has a special place, as will be mentioned later. This remark, however, does not apply to the netted passage falcon,[500] which has killed hubara for itself in a wild state.

From the wild falcon,[501] an hubara, however stout and strong, cannot possibly escape[502]; for what is the flight of an hubara compared to that of the wild saker? Until the wild saker overtakes the hubara, she will never relinquish the chase.

If, however, you fly a trained passage falcon at an hubara, it is quite a different matter; for the falcon will not be in the same high[118] condition she was in when wild, and so, if the quarry breaks away from her[503] and rises high, she will not be able to overtake it quickly: neither will she be so thin that she will give up all desire and hope of killing, and remain tamely seated on the ground. She will certainly commence a stern-chase[504] and soon be lost to view. God knows where she will overtake the hubara, whether two farsak͟h off or three.[505] Now in the first place you should not fly a passage saker at hubara.[506] If, however, you must do so, tie together four of the flight-feathers of one wing so that it shall fly clumsily, hugging the ground. The hubara will certainly stand up to do battle and the hawk will also certainly bind to it on the ground.[507] If the hubara[119] takes to flight, the hawk will follow only for a few yards, and seeing itself utterly outpaced will give up and sit on the ground.

The nature of the eyess, however, is different. I have had many that would take two or three eagles in a day, that would take crane and gazelle, and were yet afraid of hubara. The reason of this was that I omitted to seel the eyes of an hubara given as a “train”: the hubara puffed itself up on seeing the chark͟h coming towards it and got ready for the attack; the chark͟h hesitated and sat on the ground; and the hubara seeing its hesitation became like a spitting[508] cat, charged and put the chark͟h to flight. God the All-knowing, has bestowed on the hubara as a weapon of defence a peculiar kind of “mutes;”[509] and although these are nothing in reality yet they have a certain awe.

[120]

If an eyess chark͟h has once been frightened on the ground and driven off by an hubara, nothing will ever induce her to take this quarry on the ground. But a skilful falconer may cast off the chark͟h so expertly that she takes the quarry in the air within a few yards’ distance.[510]

In short, as soon as your hawk is so thoroughly entered to hubara that she will take six or seven in a day, you must go out and fly her at as many hubara as you can, but do not feed her: even though you fly her thirty times[511] with success, do not feed her. Go on flying her till she is utterly disgusted and will not attempt even to follow the quarry. As soon as you see this, bring up a gazelle fawn with meat tied on its head, as previously described in the chapter on training the passage saker. As soon as the chark͟h binds to the gazelle’s head, kill a fowl or a white pigeon, and feed her up so that she may learn the pleasure to be derived from taking a gazelle.

You must proceed with the training of the eyess as you did with the passage saker, but there are two or three points of difference. First: if the passage hawk binds at the first or second entering, she must be fed up; but the eyess must not be fed up, otherwise she will contract a habit and will always have to be fed up. Second: if the eyess follows the gazelle and works well but the greyhounds go wrong, she will certainly, when worn out, sit down;[512] you must then and there lure her and feed her up. Third: if the eyess works hard several times but is disappointed, and so no longer follows gazelle with her former zest, you must cure her as follows. Go and take two or three hubara with her, one a day, and feed her up on them. On the third or fourth day fly her at all the hubara you can without feeding her, till she is worn out or disgusted. Then, as on the first day, fly her at the gazelle’s head, feeding her up. After that let her rest for a day or two. Next, take into the open country a gazelle fawn that is quick and active, and secretly release it at a distance. After it set a dog, or a young greyhound too slow to overtake it. When the gazelle fawn gets to some distance, gallop after it and slip the greyhounds[121] as you do when hawking wild gazelle,[513] and cast off the chark͟h. When the gazelle is taken, feed up the hawk as before, that she may learn the advantage to be derived from taking this quarry and return to a liking for it. The object of entering a chark͟h to hubara is as has been stated.

You may think to yourself, “I will fly my eyess at hare as has been described for the passage hawk!”[514] Now, my pupil, on no account must you do this; fly her not at hare, for this is error. First, the nature of the passage hawk is noble, while the nature of the eyess is ignoble. If, after the disappointment that your eyess has experienced at gazelle, you fly her at hare with success, you must of necessity feed her up; and as the gazelle and the hare are both ground-game[515] and akin, your hawk will say to herself, “Why should I not henceforth fly only the easier quarry? No stamped bond have I given to the Court to wrestle[516] with that other kind of[122] jackass!”[517] The hubara, on the contrary, is not ground-game,[518] nor has the eyess in a wild state preyed on it as has the passage hawk. By taking one or two hubara, the eyess recovers her keenness and pluck, but, on the third or fourth day, when she is overflown at hubara and unrewarded, she gets disgusted with that particular quarry; being then flown at a gazelle’s head and rewarded, she re-transfers her attention to that quarry, and by being afterwards given an easy bagged fawn, her affection for the quarry is cemented.

The system of training the chark͟h and the bālābān to gazelle is this that has been described, and it is the system of the falconers of Baghdad and of the Nomad Arabs, who are masters of this particular sport. But the people of Turkistan and Khurasan and Buzhnurd,[519] being unskilled, have a different system, and that, too, for the eyess only; for they are quite unable to train the passage saker to take even one gazelle.

Another System of Training the “Chark͟h” to Gazelle.—Their system is this. First they dig a dry canal about three or four ells[520] deep, and four hundred or five hundred paces long. At the end, a recess or chamber is constructed, sufficiently large to contain a gazelle that is brought and confined there. A rope is tied to the gazelle’s leg, and the gazelle is, step by step, driven and beaten so that it flees to take refuge in this chamber at the farther end. This treatment is continued till the beginning of Autumn, when the people commence giving “trains”[521] to their eyess sakers.

The gazelle’s head is protected from the hawk’s claws[522] by a piece of leather that has two holes to admit the horns, and on this leather the meat is securely fastened. The gazelle, released in the canal at the required distance from the chamber according to the progress the young hawk has made, is obliged to run straight and take refuge in its accustomed retreat. If, during the run, the[123] chark͟h binds to the meat on its head, the rope is pulled and the chark͟h fed up on the “train’s” head. One gazelle can act as a “train”[523] for twenty chark͟h.

As soon as these people have in this manner completed the training and have killed the gazelle under the hawk, they, owing to their lack of understanding, cast off four or five chark͟h at a wild gazelle, and slip five or six greyhounds. God knows whether they ever kill anything. If they do, it is not skill; if they do not, it is utter bungling.

Now the system of the falconers of Bag͟hdād, Chaʿb[524] and Muʿammara[525] (in which places this ancient flight with the eyess or passage saker was first “invented”) is wholly distinct and apart from that of the Turkistānīs and K͟hurāsānīs; for the former, even at a herd of two hundred gazelle, fly only a single bālābān succoured by a couple of greyhounds[526]; but so well trained and intelligent are the hounds that even if a thousand gazelles come in front of them, they will seize only that one at which the hawk is stooping.

The skill of these latter people, however, is confined to training chark͟h and bālābān to gazelle, hubara, and hare, and they practise no other flight. Skill is shown by practising every form of sport.[527]

Another method of training Chark͟h AND Bālābān to Gazelle.—The people of the Fārs desert train the chark͟h and bālābān to gazelle by another method. In the early Autumn when the passage sakers are caught, they tame[528] one and lure it with the gazelle’s head. When thoroughly entered to this lure,[529] they tie it up in a dark place till its bones get set and strong, and its marrow becomes black,[530] and the bird itself fills out and grows stout and vigorous. Twenty days before the Naw-rūz[531] they take it up, and every morning and every evening lure it,[532] etc., with the gazelle head. Now in the hot climate of this desert, young gazelles are born from between ten to fifteen days before the Naw-rūz to ten to fifteen days after it. A “train”[533] of a small fawn is given, and the hawk is then flown in the desert at young fawns, which on account of their small size[534] are easily taken, and she is so flown till the young fawns begin to go about with their dams. After the bālābān has taken seven or eight fawns, she will readily single out the young fawn from the dam. When in this manner she has singled out and taken seven or eight[535] fawn at foot, it is considered sufficient; the weather, too, has grown too hot to go out into the country: the hawks are therefore of necessity set down to moult.

After being taken up out of the moult, they are, next season, given two or three “trains”[536] before being flown at a large wild gazelle.

If the falconer has the patience, this last method is, for the following reasons, the best. First; the hawk, when taken out of the[125] moult, having not forgotten the six or seven fawns she killed in the Spring, will, when flown in the Autumn, single out the smallest quarry. Second; the long rest will have set and hardened her young bones so that she will not be liable to get swollen feet.[537] Third; she will have become domesticated, will have learnt wisdom, and will not be liable to get lost.

Do not be in the least afraid that your hawk, having been entered to fawns, will not tackle a horned buck[538] or a full-grown gazelle. If she is keen, you can fly her at two or three bucks that happen to be together without a female. These three bucks have not been cast in one mould: one is certain to be rather smaller than the others, and this one your hawk will single out. If you find a single buck, let it be even as big as the foal of an ass, she will tackle it all right. But if, one day, you fly her at an old buck, and the hounds not arriving she wears herself out and gets jostled or injured, you may rest assured that in the second moult she will not tackle an old buck. She will still, however, take does, or small young bucks that are only one or two years old.

A bālābān that has been trained by this last method is certainly better than one trained by either of the preceding methods.

Now, my son, let me instruct thee in the training of the Shāhīn so that thy falcon may in the field excel those of other sportsmen, and thou thyself be acknowledged a master. First, thou must thyself be a shāhīn, and thy horse, too, must be like one.

Falconers have compared the Shāhīn to a rifle bullet, and what an expert marksman expects from his weapon you must expect from your falcon; she must not miss when cast at quarry within her compass.

[126]

Now know that the nature of the Shāhīn somewhat resembles that of the Goshawks; it does not require many “hand-birds” and “trains.”[540] Amongst falcons[541] it is the hero.

Should a young[542] shāhīn come into your possession, set her on a perch, and feed and fatten her[543] up till the rising of Canopus.[544] Then slightly reduce her food for a day or two, just enough to induce her to step off her perch on to your fist. About half an hour after dark, fit her with a soft part-worn hood[545] that cannot, by hurting her, make her hood-shy; for hood-shyness, in a shāhīn, is a vice that can, by no manner of means, be cured.[546] If the back of the hood be too tight, her ears will be hurt, and she will develop the incurable disease of “ear-ache.”

Every half hour or so, unhood her near the lamp, stroke her on the head and breast, and then replace her on the perch. Then again take her up and hood her, and continue doing this for three or four hours. After that remove her hood and place her on her perch in the place that she is accustomed to sleep in every night. Early next morning take her up, hood her, and give her a small quantity of meat washed in warm water, and then set her on her perch till mid-day. After mid-day take her on the fist and carry her in the shade. At sun-down give her a few pigeon’s or chicken’s feathers washed in warm water, so that she may “cast” early and rid herself of glut and slime.[547] As soon as she has lost some flesh, [127]procure a lure made of the wings of a common crane, and firmly bind a piece of meat on to it. If she jumps to this from the falconer’s fist, even the length of her jesses, it is sufficient.

It is not necessary to teach the shāhīn or the eyess saker to recognize its name.[548] Especially is such teaching improper in the case of the passage shāhīn; for if you have taught the latter to know its name like a passage saker, and should call her by it when she is hooded, she will make her carrier impotent by tearing at his glove,[549] or by “bating,” or hanging head downwards with her claws convulsively fixed in his glove. It is sufficient to teach the shāhīn to come to the luring cry of coo coo.[550]

Now as soon as she is thoroughly trained to the lure of crane’s[128] wings, i.e., as soon as she will come eagerly and unhesitatingly to it from the falconer’s fist the moment that it is swung, you must, in the following manner, give her one or two live chickens on the lure. As soon as the hawk binds to the lure, insert the head and neck of the chicken through the wings of the lure, and let the hawk grasp it in her claws. Then, cut the chicken’s throat and feed up the hawk. Give her several chickens in this manner, one in the morning and one in the evening. In the morning, take care that your hawk eats no feathers with her meat, but in the evening give her a “casting” of feathers. Recollect, too, that the higher the condition in which you train and enter a shāhīn the better.

The next step is to fly your shāhīn at a blue rock[551] with eyes partially “seeled” so that it can see out of the top only of the eyes. Go out into the open country; show the pigeon to the hawk and then let it fly. When the pigeon has got away a little distance, cast off your shāhīn so that she may take the pigeon in the air. Cut the pigeon’s throat and feed up the hawk, giving her sufficient food to last her for twenty-four hours. Then carry her home, and with warm water wash away any blood stains, and also carefully cleanse her nostrils from congealed blood. Give her two or three pigeons in this manner.

You must now mark down a “little-owl”[552] somewhere in open country where there are no wells near. Unhood your hawk and walk up towards the owl. As soon as it is on the wing and your hawk shows an inclination to give chase, let her go. If she takes the owl, feed her up. If, however, the owl gets into a hole, quickly cast the lure to your hawk and let her take it: on no account let her settle on the ground, for settling on the ground is in a shāhīn an odious vice.

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Hood the hawk on the lure and feed her. Now go and pull the owl out of its hiding place and put it in your falconer’s bag for the evening. In the evening—provided your hawk has not been given too much food in the morning—mount your horse and go out into the open plain, to a place where there are neither holes nor wells. Unhood the shāhīn; let her see the owl and then let the owl fly. When it has flown about twenty yards, cast off the hawk. She is certain to take it. Kill the owl and feed up the hawk. You must now fly and kill with her two or three of these “little-owls.”

The next thing to do is to fly her at a stone-plover.[553] You must cast her off with her breast to the wind, and then cut off the plover so that it squats on the ground.[554] If she takes it, feed her up on other food, saving the plover alive for another day in case of[130] accident, for you must not let your hawk’s success make you overconfident. If she fail to take it, lure her and feed her.

If you have a made hawk, it is better to unhood her at the plover first, to show the youngster the way.

Here let me give you a word of caution. Should your shāhīn fail to kill, on no account must you in luring her back release the bagged plover as she comes towards you: do so only twice and she will never after be really good at the lure; she will contract a habit of “waiting on” in expectation of a live bird being thrown out for her, and will ignore the dead lure; then, if you have no live bird by you with which to lure her without delay, some eagle will be attracted to the spot, and she will to a certainty be lost.

Now a properly trained shāhīn should be obedient to the dead lure; she should not require live “hand-birds”[555] to call her down.

To resume; you must first take two or three stone-plover with her, and then two or three hubara.[556] After that, three or four mallard,[557] then a wild goose,[558] and then two or three common heron.[559] Fly her at this quarry in the order mentioned, for a shāhīn improves by degrees[560] and does not require to be entered to large quarry by “hand-trains.”[561] Should you, however, be in a district where all this quarry is not to be found, you must of necessity have recourse to “trains.” Next fly her at a raven.[562] If she take it, give her only a little meat and save the raven alive. On the morrow fly her at this raven from a good long distance: as soon as she takes it, cut the raven’s throat and let her just taste the blood, but feed her up on the flesh of a pigeon or of a chicken, for the flesh of the raven is not a suitable food for hawks.

On the following day take your hawk and go to some spot where only two or three half-tame undisturbed cranes[563] are [132]accustomed to feed. Get close up to them and cast off your hawk. If your shāhīn “bind” to the quarry, get in as quick as you can and secure the crane’s wings;[564] cut its throat, rip open its breast, and feed your hawk.

If the shāhīn bind to the head of the quarry but let it go again after a slight struggle, call her to the lure and quickly feed her up on the warm flesh of a pigeon or of a chicken, and, on the morrow, she will not fail you.

If the shāhīn approach the crane close, but neither strike it nor stoop at it, act in the same way, i.e., lure her and feed her on warm flesh; for amongst falconers it is accepted as a fact that, if a shāhīn chase the quarry at which she is unhooded, only for the length of her leash, and be then quickly fed on warm palatable flesh, she will, on the morrow, chase the same quarry for double that distance.

Fly her, I say, on the morrow, and if she again chases and again fails, lure her and feed her up on warm flesh.

If you have patience and act as directed, she is certain, at the third or fourth flight, to take the quarry.

Recollect that a shāhīn differs in disposition from all other hawks; in disposition it is the most noble. An eyess chark͟h on the contrary, if lured and fed after she has turned tail, will, from the ignobleness[565] of her nature, contract this habit of turning tail. Not so the shāhīn, for if she be rewarded on the lure after a chase of ten yards, she will on the second day chase for fifty yards; and will, on the third day, either take the quarry, or else make such an earnest stoop that she may be considered to have taken it.

If your shāhīn binds to the crane high up in the air, seizing it by the head, and then, when nearing the earth, unbinds and strikes it to the ground, you must be close up to render assistance by seizing the crane to prevent it, if not disabled, from escaping. You should, too, have with you an old made hawk, shāhīn or chark͟h, ready to fly at a quarry that is perhaps only partially disabled; for it is the habit of most shāhīns to unbind and[133] altogether release the quarry before touching the earth.[566] A second made hawk is therefore necessary to secure the partially disabled quarry.

Should your shāhīn be buffeted by the crane and in consequence turn tail, you should fly her for a few days at crane just at sunset. Should this expedient fail, try the following remedy:—

Call her to the lure of crane’s wings for a day or two (flying her at no quarry), and kill for her under the lure some live bird. After that mount your horse, go out into the open country and fly her at a raven, an hubara, or a stone-plover, or, failing these three, at a little-owl.[567] Take one of these three with her and feed her on the warm flesh. Next evening fly her at a crane and she[134] will not fail you, but will return to her former excellence. For a shāhīn that has been buffeted by a crane and therefore turns tail, there is no medicine like a flight at a raven or a stone-plover. Don’t, my son, think that you will remake her by flying her at a heron; for on the contrary, you will, by so doing, mar her for crane. Often have I seen a crane-hawk so spoilt.

You may argue that a heron closely resembles a crane in colour and in shape, while a raven does not. Quite so—but a heron is, compared to a crane, a small and feeble[568] quarry, one that your hawk will easily take.[569] Flown at a heron she will say to herself, “Hallo! there are two kinds of crane, one suitable and the other unsuitable; the former is the game for me; no more of the latter.” The raven and the stone-plover, however, have no resemblance to the crane; a successful flight at either, duly rewarded by warm flesh, strengthens a shāhīn’s courage.

Another remedy for a crane hawk that has turned tail is to fly her several times with[571] a made hawk, giving the latter a goodish start. When the “cast” has taken one or two cranes in this[135] manner, reverse the process, that is, cast off, first the hawk that turned tail and then a little later the made hawk.

A shāhīn differs from other falcons.[572] Don’t fancy you can give her ten flights in a day without spoiling her. If you work her like this, she will become stale and will be spoilt. One to three flights with a shāhīn are permissible; more are unlawful.[573]

Good Hawking Districts.—Possibly you are wondering to yourself what district will produce for your shāhīn all this varied quarry. Let me tell you that there is first Sulaymāniyah in Kurdistān;[574] next, the province of Bag͟hdād, which has within a radius of two or three farsak͟h all the quarry you want; and lastly, the district of Shīrāz. These are the only three places I have ever come across in my life where all quarry suitable for a shāhīn is to be found.[575]

“Waiting on.”—For “waiting-on” flights, the peregrine[576] or the passage shahin[577] is better than the eyess shahin.[578] If you train your shāhīn[579] to “wait on” she will never take large quarry such as wild goose, common crane, ruddy shieldrake, common heron, etc.; but she will, however, show you excellent sport with small quarry. The beauty of the shāhīn lies in this, that when you gallop on to large quarry, unhooding her at it, she is off your fist like a bullet, to seize it. That his hawk should take unusual quarry that she does not kill in her wild state is the pride of a falconer, and it is in this he exhibits his skill. Pigeons, plover, duck and so on are, in a hawk’s wild state, her natural prey; these she takes without the falconer’s teaching.

To train the bālābān to heron, she must first be trained, as already described, to a lure[581] made of the wings of a common crane.

When she knows the lure well, get a live chicken and tie it by the leg to the lure, with a string about twenty inches long. Lure the hawk from a long distance, casting into the air, two or three times, the lure garnished with the chicken, so that the hawk may come with force and eagerness and seize the chicken. Cut the chicken’s throat and feed up the hawk. Let her kill two or three fowls in this manner, so that she may come with eagerness to the lure.

Now go out into the open country and find a night-heron,[582] get close to it and cast off your hawk at it. * * *.[583]

If you find a night-heron on the edge of a small stream, cast off your hawk, and should she take it, feed her up.[584] If, however, she will not fly it, you must take one with a shahin or with a goshawk and in the morning give it to her alive as a flying train: if she will not take it, bind a little meat on its back. Fly her at this same “train” again in the evening. When she will readily take the “train,” you must fly her at one or two wild night-herons and at one or two purple herons. * * *.[585]

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Now procure a bagged common heron[586] and on its broad yār māliq[587] feathers tie a piece of meat very firmly so that there is no possible chance of your hawk being able to disengage it and go off with it. Hold the heron by one wing, and get your assistant to stand some distance off with the hawk. When the bālābān binds to the meat, let her pull and eat a little: then remove her. You must now seel the heron’s eyes so that it may not suddenly ring up[588]—better still, bind two or three of its flight-feathers together so that it may run on the ground and extend its wings.[589] As soon as the hawk takes the train feed her up.

On the morrow, again tie meat on to the heron’s back, but unbind the flight-feathers so that it may fly well. Release the heron, and when it has flown ten or twelve paces unhood and cast off your hawk. As soon as she takes it, give her only a little meat and fly her again in the evening in the same way. Do this for several days, gradually reducing the quantity of meat on the heron’s back.[590] As soon as your hawk flies the heron in style, seizing it by the neck without regarding the meat, cut the heron’s throat and feed her up.[591] Next day procure a fresh heron but tie no meat on its back. Let it fly, and when it has flown a good distance unhood and[138] cast off your hawk. When she takes the heron, feed her up. Withdraw the dead heron from her grasp and cast it to a distance of ten or twelve yards that she may know that that is her dead quarry;[592] then let her go and settle on it and take two or three beakfuls. Again withdraw and cast the dead heron to a little distance, but do not let the hawk go: let her “bate” towards it once or twice and then hood her. Wash off any blood spots and clean the “nares”.[593]

Now procure another heron, one strong of flight, that will ring up. Get an assistant to mount some high place—a place about a hundred ell high[594]—and release the heron. You must be mounted, and, hawk on fist, take stand below this spot. Remove the hood of the hawk and let her discover the heron above her. She will have to exert herself to get above it, and if, after getting above it, she makes two or three stoops at it[595] before binding, what better? Feed her up.

Next day, go and find a wild heron in an easy and suitable spot, but have with you as a “make-hawk”[596] a bālābān that is fully trained to this flight. First cast off your young hawk. She will, of course, make four or five stoops at the heron, but should the heron commence to “ring” and the hawk show signs of slackening, then at once cast off the “make-hawk,” so that the jealousy of the young hawk may be excited and they may together take the quarry. Feed up the young hawk well, so that you may give her washed meat[597] the day following.

As long as your hawk, while ringing up with the heron, keeps beating[598] her wings quickly, it is a sign that she is trying to get[139] above it; but the moment she ceases to beat, and begins to sail,[599] she has given up. In this case, at once call her down to the lure of crane’s wings, and as soon as she comes reward her by killing, under the lure, either a chicken or a pigeon, feeding her up well; for in the opinion of falconers this dropping from a height to the lure is better than taking ten herons: she is now your property; up till now she has been merely a loan.

Next day[600] go and find a heron in an easy place, and first cast off your young hawk at it. As soon as she has made one or two stoops, cast off the “make-hawk” (before the heron commences to ring) so that they may stoop at it alternately and the two may take it together.

On the following day feed her lightly;[601] and on the day following that, again fly her at a heron. If she is in her proper condition[602] and not too fat, and is also hungry, it is impossible for her to fail, even if the heron ring up into the Seventh Heaven[603]—unless, of course, an eagle interferes or the heron drops into a broad stream that cannot be crossed. Should either of these mishaps occur, lure her without delay, and feed her well. In the latter case, you may consider she has taken this heron: it is as though she had done so. On the morrow, please God, she will not fail.

If your hawk has had a hard flight after a heron, she should be fed up on it, and not flown a second time that day. If, however, she kills very quickly and without exertion, there is no harm in giving her a second flight.

If you want your saker to fly heron well, you should keep her for this flight alone and not fly her at anything else.

A young passage saker in the first or immature plumage,[604] is far better for this flight than the “intermewed” hawk,[605] for, after the moult, a hawk becomes heavy, and cannot ring up after a[140] heron. For one or two moults a hawk will indeed kill heron in a sort of fashion,[606] but after three or four moults she is useless for this flight;[607] you must procure a young bālābān[608] for it.

You must know that it is the pride and glory of a falconer that his bālābān should take common crane with dash and resolution, i.e., that she should stoop quickly and bind soon, not letting the crane get away any distance; then your mounted friends can watch the sport closely, and applaud the exploits of both falcon and falconer.

There are, in hawking, only two forms of the sport that can be shared by a crowd; firstly, crane-hawking with the bālābān, and secondly, heron-hawking with the bālābān: hundreds of sportsmen can together witness and enjoy these two flights. In all other flights, whether with long-winged or short-winged hawks,[609] the smaller the party the better.

Though training a bālābān to common heron is more tedious and troublesome than training it to any other quarry,[610] still the trouble is repaid.

Now if you want to indulge in the sport properly, you must have with you five or six active mounted men, two or three trained and keen bālābāns, two or three keen shāhīns and two chark͟hs trained to eagle; for hawk makes hawk: if you want a “make-hawk” it is there, and if you want a live train it is there, or if you want a dead crane it is there. If you have not all this equipment[141] yourself, you must join forces with some sporting friend or friends, otherwise it will not be possible for you to train your hawk to eagles.

Before entering your passage saker to common crane, you must train her and fly her at common heron as already described. On most days, too, when other hawks take crane, you must give her one, in her feet,[611] to make her keen and plucky.

From the beginning of Autumn to the beginning of Spring, the immature passage saker[612] is what the Arabs call “ignorant,”[613] i.e., it is “mad”: it will take a train[614] of anything that is given it, except an eagle;—for in its wild state it has experienced the tyranny of the eagle and has learnt its might.

Well, from the beginning of Autumn till ten days before the Naw-rūz Festival, you must fly your “ignoramus” at common heron. You must then get a live uninjured crane with unshortened wings,[615] and tying meat on its back make it run and flap its wings, and then fly your hawk at it. If she seizes the crane by the head, it is a sign that she has a big heart and is well-plucked, but if she binds to the meat she is only middling. In either case, fly her thus, once in the morning, and once in the evening.

The next day show her the crane and let it fly a little,[616] and then fly your hawk at it: do this twice as on the previous day.

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On the third day, if the crane will fly, well and good; but if not, it must be cast off a mound or from some high place—the meat as before being bound on its back—so that the hawk may bind to it in the air, and both birds come to the ground together. If you find that she binds to the crane’s head and pays no attention to the meat, you should, if possible, cut the crane’s throat, and feed up your “ignoramus”—it being of course understood that you have plenty of bagged cranes or the means of obtaining them. If, however, you have but this one “train,” you must stealthily introduce under the crane’s wing a blue-rock or any pigeon coloured like the crane, and feed the hawk on it; or else introduce a chicken under the wing, and putting its head into the hawk’s foot, so cut the throat that the hawk may not hear the chicken’s cries.

On the following day fly the hawk at the crane from a longer distance.

Now when you see that your hawk thoroughly recognizes a crane, and will resolutely fly at any train first shown to it and then released from the hand, you must proceed as follows:—

Get a crane, and as before tie meat on to its back. Cut its sharp front claw—a claw as sharp and deadly as a hawk’s—and insert a string through the nostrils; then bind the two mandibles together, so that the crane may in no way frighten or injure the hawk, neither with its feet nor with its beak. Now seel the eyes and drive it off ten or twenty yards, and fly your hawk at it while it is on the move. Continue this practice, increasing the distance, but lessening the meat till no meat remains, and until your hawk, rising from your fist without hesitation, will make straight for the crane, and after one or two stoops bind to its head.

On the morrow, if you have a fresh crane that will fly, you should unhood the hawk and fly her at that, after it is put on the wing; but, if the crane will not fly, you must get an assistant to carry it to a distance and there release it. He must then either lie flat on the ground, or conceal himself behind some cover, so that he may be near to render speedy assistance to the hawk by seizing the crane’s legs as soon as the hawk binds to its head.

For a few days, too, you should release two cranes and three cranes in company, so that your hawk may single out one.

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If, in the district where you are, there are still cranes to be found, i.e., if they have not yet migrated out of the country, go out into the open country and take with you a make-hawk too, and somehow or other with the latter take a crane. Then, as soon as possible, let this freshly caught crane fly, and when it has flown about a hundred yards, unhood and cast off your young hawk. She is sure to take the crane. Cut the crane’s throat, and feed up the hawk, giving her the heart; give her, too, some of the small neck feathers as a “casting.”

Next take your hawk out into the country, and if you happen to find a solitary crane put your trust in God and fly her at it. If, however, you find a flock of ten or twenty, on no account fly her; do not even think of doing so. If you fail to find a solitary crane, you must with your made hawks take a crane, and at once give it to your young hawk as a flying “train”—as you did yesterday.

On the next day, again go out hawking, and if you find a solitary crane, fly her at it. Have by you a “make-hawk,” but if your falconer’s knowledge tells you that your young hawk is master of the situation, do nothing: if, however, you see that the young hawk is not flying with resolution, then without loss of time cast off the “make-hawk” to her assistance. When the crane is taken, feed up the young hawk on it.

If during this Spring she takes one or two cranes, return thanks to God, and fly her at nothing else; set her down in the “mew”[617] to moult[618] and act as will be explained later. Leave her in the “mew” till all your hawks are moulted. When she comes out of the moult, you must treat her again exactly as you did when she was “ignorant.”[619] As soon as you have re-made her to the lure, go and fly her at a common heron. If she takes it, nothing can be better: feed her up. If she has no inclination for it, or if she does not work well, give her a good active heron as a “train,” releasing it at a distance. If to-day she takes the “train,” to-morrow she will take a wild heron. After she has taken one or two common herons, you must turn your attention to cranes.

Take a crane with your old “make-hawk,” show it to her and let it fly, and then feed her up on it. Next, give her two more[144] “trains” of common crane released secretly: these should have meat tied on their backs. As soon as she takes the “train” feed her up.

Now go out and find a half-tame[620] crane; stalk it, and get as close as possible to it; then, placing your reliance on God, fly your young hawk at it. The nearer you get to the crane the better. As soon as your young hawk has got a short distance, cast off an old “make-hawk” to her assistance. The first hawk will make a stoop or two; the “make-hawk” will then arrive, and will keep the crane engaged and overpowered till your mounted assistant, arriving in all haste, secures it and prevents it doing an injury to the hawk. Feed up your young hawk on the crane. She is now well on the road to being quite made.

Should this tame crane take wing when you get close to it, on no account be tempted to fly your hawk at it, for the crane may get away a long distance before your hawk binds to it; and a second crane then joining in the fray to assist its fellow, both birds may so buffet and injure your hawk that she will be useless for further sport, or else so frighten her that she will ignore the lure and be lost. In either case the labour of two years will be lost.

Hawks,[621] whether long-winged or short-winged, are of two kinds; those that the falconer must assist, and those that assist the falconer. A hawk that is mettled, high-spirited, and valiant, if given but one “train,” is made: such a hawk gives assistance to the falconer. Another requires ten “trains” and bagged birds; such a hawk demands assistance from the falconer.

Well, for five or six days you must fly your hawk secretly[622] as described above.

Now listen attentively to what I am going to say. When you[145] are stalking this solitary half-tame crane—or it may be two cranes—should they become alert and seem ready to take wing, hood your hawk and move off to a little distance that they may settle down and again busy themselves with grazing. Should they take wing and settle again, follow them up, or else find others, one, or two, or three—not more. As soon as they settle down to their walking about and picking up grain, unhood your hawk even though the distance be somewhat more, and when your hawk sights the crane, place your trust in God and cast her off. You must judge the distance, and when your hawk is twenty or thirty yards from the crane, you and all your mounted men[623] must suddenly burst into a gallop, i.e., you must so time matters that just as the crane is forced to take wing the hawk reaches it. At the first stoop all three cranes are sure to fall and sit on the ground. You and your falconers will then reach them and they will again rise. Your hawk, however, will be in the air and will command all three. If you see that your hawk is slack, then without hesitation cast off an old “make-hawk” to her assistance.

Whether the young hawk takes the crane herself, or whether after a few stoops the make-hawk arrives and first binds to the crane, matters not in the least.

On no account must you this season, i.e., up to Spring, fly your hawk at a large flock of crane, for the combination of cranes is like that of no other living thing, and your hawk is only in her second year.

In the opinion of the author, a young falcon in the first year is better than an “intermewed” one of one moult,[624] for the young hawk[625] is “ignorant” and “mad”; it will obey any order that is given her and will fly any “train” that is shown to her. After one moult, however, she has learnt a few falconer’s stratagems and [146]is not easily deluded: if she has not yet learnt all there is to know, she will have done so by the time she is past her second moult.[626]

Now if you fly your valuable passage hawk (of one moult) at a large flock of crane, say a flock consisting of thirty or forty, more or less, she, being plucky and keen on this quarry, will single out and “bind” to one. If you and your mounted companions are up in time, all is well; but if not, the flock will so buffet and bang the hawk that she may be completely cowed. If by nature high-spirited, she will become cunning;[627] if not naturally plucky she will be spoilt beyond re-making. If such an accident does happen, and your hawk suffers, the remedy is to fly her, ten or fifteen times, with a good make-hawk, and then, somehow or other, to manage to take with her alone in the Spring two or three more cranes. However, there is a great risk in flying a passage saker in the Spring[628] whether she be a young hawk or whether an “intermewed”[629] one of one moult; therefore be content with taking only two or three cranes. If one day your passage falcon works hard in the heat[630] and fails to kill, you will hardly succeed in recovering her: she will depart. For this reason you must not be impatient but be satisfied with only two or three cranes. When your hawk has so killed, feed her up well, place your trust in God, and set her down to moult. After the second moult she is your obedient bond-slave, and she has learnt, too, all there is to know of her business.

When you take her out of this second moult, you must, by some means or other, manage to take with her, first a common heron. Next you must, with an old hawk, take a common crane, and on the spot give it as a “train,” flying the hawk at it in such a way that she thinks it is a wild one. Now, in this third season, your hawk is thoroughly and completely trained.

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To guard against accidents,[631] you should every year keep a good young passage-saker and train her to the flight of the common heron, so that should any accident happen to one of your crane-hawks, you will have by you a youngster all ready for being entered to crane. If you omit to take this precaution, you will some year lose a whole season’s sport. Your “mews” should contain hawks trained to various quarry, whether your hawks are sakers or shāhīns.

As soon as your passage saker singles out and binds to one crane, out of a flock of say thirty or forty, all its companions will attack her and release their comrade. If the hawk knows her business, she will at once release the crane, and waiting on above the flock will not lose sight of the particular crane to which she bound[632] until you arrive on the spot and again put up the cranes. She will then again stoop at her selected quarry, when again all the cranes will attack her and release the captured bird. You must all gallop as hard as you can; neither pit, nor well, nor stream must hinder you. You must not draw rein till you are right in the midst of the fray, when every sportsman should unhood and cast off his saker or peregrine at the quarry that is nearest to him. I myself have often, out of a flock of five, taken four; often, too, have we knocked over birds with sticks and clubs. As for shooting them, that is quite easy.

There is no bird to equal the common crane in valour and a fine sense of honour; when your bālābān takes one, if there are a hundred others in the air, they will one and all drop from the sky like a stooping shāhīn, attack your hawk, and perhaps kill her: till they release their captured comrade they will not again take the air. This is how it is that five, or six, or seven, cranes out of a “herd” can be secured or killed. Ah! had a sovereign but five thousand cavalry possessed of the valour and resolution of the common crane, he could conquer the world. Well, as I said, you and your men must gallop hard, not funking wells, and streams, and holes.

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You must know that there is no sport more difficult than that of the saker and crane, but there is also none better; none, except that of the lion with a buffalo, and the cheetah with a gazelle.[633] I have hunted many a lion and seen trouble therefrom, for the sport is inauspicious; for the lion is the King of Beasts, and His Highness the Commander of the Faithful[634] (on whom be peace) is styled the Lion of God. Hence the sport of the lion is baleful, and he that follows it will certainly see no good; still it’s a fine sport; I have tried it—but my advice to you is on no account to do so, else you will regret it, for no benefit accrues therefrom.

Now let me say a few words concerning the management of hawks in the moult. The more hawks of any kind are flown at quarry and the better they are protected from the severity of heat and cold, the better and quicker will they moult. Hawks moult cleaner and quicker in the hot regions of Persia than in the cold.[635] Further you must pay the greatest attention to the flesh you give them, not feeding them on one kind of meat only, for if you do, they will certainly fall sick.

Now if you wish to moult your hawks in a hot region, such as Baghdad, you must construct out of split-cane a “mew” of a size proportionate to the number of your hawks, building it on the river bank where the Shimāl[636] wind can constantly be felt. In front of this house or room, enclose an open space with a wall.[637] Inside [149]the room, construct at a distance of forty inches from the wall, as many hollow mud platforms as you have hawks.[638] Fill in the top of the platforms with sand and fine gravel, and spread the floor of the room also to the depth of a span with sand and gravel. On the platforms intended for short-winged hawks, spread leaves of willow, or wild mint, fresh and green, or any other kind of greenery, so that the hawks may lie down and rest on it. Next, in front of each platform, construct in the ground a small bathing tank lined with red clay. Every morning early, you must sprinkle the inside of the mew with water, and every evening as soon as the sun has set, you must take out your hawks, short-winged and long-winged, and “weather”[639] them in the open-air enclosure that is in front of their room. In the outside enclosure, too, there must be, dug out of the ground, small tanks, which should be lined with clay. Doubtless you are saying to yourself, “Why can’t I substitute a copper or an earthen basin?” Now, were you to substitute a copper or an earthen basin, there would be a danger that while splashing about in the water, the moulting hawk might strike the half-grown wing- or tail-quills that are full of blood against the hard substance of the basin, and that the injury might cause the blood to dry up in the quills, which would thereby become “strangled,” and would eventually drop out. Now with a tank of beaten clay and sand there is no such danger. In short, every hawk in this outside enclosure also, must have its own bathing-pool.

“Rangle.”—In front of each long-winged hawk there should be a handful of pebbles ranging from a size smaller than a pea to a size larger than a bean; for it is the habit of all falcons[640] in the mew to swallow small stones on most afternoons before they are fed, and to cast them up again with a great deal of “bile.”[641] Should a hawk have stones in her stomach when you feed her, she will[150] retain the meat in her feet and wait a little till she has cast up the stones. Not till then will she feed.

Short-winged hawks do not eat “Rangle.”—Goshawks and other short-winged hawks do not eat stones in the moult.

During the moult you must feed your hawk twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, letting her eat as much as she pleases, so that she be gorged.[642]

If the “mew” be in a “cool-region,” every short-winged hawk, from a common sparrow-hawk to a white goshawk, should have a room to itself, proportionate to its size. A few air-holes should be made on the north side. In this room, two or three perches of varying thickness should be erected, and the perches themselves should not be turned to a uniform thickness, so that the hawk may have a choice and select a perch that suits its fancy at the time. A roomy bathing-pool must also be constructed in the ground. Next, place in the room a piece of matting [made of split cane] to the centre of which a cord is attached. At first you must feed the hawk twice a day, till she is fat. As soon as she is fat, the amount of her food must be a fixed quantity, and this should be bound on to the centre of the matting and left, so that she may feed when she feels inclined.

It is not advisable to keep falcons loose like this in a room; in fact, it is injurious to do so.[643]

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Moulting hawks are of two kinds; the one “generous,” the other “miserly.” The “generous” are those that moult quickly; the “miserly” those that positively refuse to part with their feathers. Should you happen to have a hawk of the latter description and wish to make it moult quickly, then:—

Receipt: procure a snake; hold its head and tail together in one hand, and then chop off, with one blow, about four fingers’ breadth of its extremities; skin it, and give your hawk a little of its flesh.[644] Item: feed your hawk a few days on the flesh of the hoopoe.[645] Item: give your hawk daily, concealed in a thin slice of meat, one ant-lion with three of the saliva-glands of sheep.[646] Item: dry and grind up some hornets,[647] and for three alternate days sprinkle this powder on your hawk’s meat. Item: reduce your hawk’s food for three or four days, so that she may lose a little flesh. Grind[648] up the skin of a snake, and twice a day give some of this to her with her meat. She will quickly cast her feathers.[649] Item: dry, in the shade, several saliva-glands taken from the necks of sheep. Grind one before feeding and mix it with her meat. She will soon cast her feathers. Item: during the space of six days, feed her thrice on the flesh of a nine- or ten-day-old puppy. She will quickly cast and renew her feathers. This receipt is[152] specially beneficial in the case of long-winged hawks, particularly so in the case of the peregrine, which moults better than any other kind of hawk, for it moults quite two months earlier than other hawks.[650]

You must know that during the moult there is no food so good, for both short-winged and long-winged hawks, as the flesh of the two-legged rat, called by the Arabs jarbūʿ[651] (jerboa). In the absence of these rats you must catch house-mice.[652]

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[153] 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.

My son, though life and death are in the hands of the Creator, still the physician is for the relief of the sick. Such remedies and treatments as I have by my own experience proved beneficial, I will here set down, so that they may remain on record.

Now, you must know that the pulse of birds lies in the second joint of the wing, and that the heat and the moisture of their temperament is known by holding the wing and feeling the pulse in it.

Know, that the pulse of a man in perfect health (that is a man in whom the four humours are balanced, no one humour preponderating over another), has seventy-five pulsations to the minute. If humidity preponderate, it beats less; if heat, more. In birds of prey, however, on account of their natural heat, the pulse beats from 135 to 140.[655] If the bird be fevered, it beats more; but if humidity preponderate, then less.

The signs of health in a short-winged hawk are these: she should be bright and ever on the look-out for food, and never mournful nor moping. The morning casting should be firm. When she mutes, she should do so quickly, and the mutes should be cast[154] clear away to a distance:[656] the white of the mutes should be very white, with the dark portion somewhat firmer. She should drink regularly, and should bathe. After feeding, the stomach[657] should be quickly filled. When in the evening you place the hawk on her perch,[658] she should not sleep in the centre of it, but should move to one side to do so. A hawk that does all this is in robust health; but if out of sorts these conditions will not be found in her.

It may happen that a cataract form on your hawk’s eye. If so:—

Remedy: should it arise from humidity of temperament, feed her for three days on larks and sparrows, giving her the feathers so that she may cast in the morning. Should she not recover, then brand her with log-wood[659] between the eye and the nostril on both sides, making two small brands the size of a peppercorn. Item: take a tamarisk stick and put one end in the fire. Then take a piece of twisted cotton-wool and apply the oozing sap, quite hot, to the cataract. Give her also one small dose of manna,[660] so that she be “moved”[661] a few times. Item: remove the fine film with scissors.

Should your hawk’s eye become white, so much so that the pupil is covered, then, if the disease arises from excessive cold or from the effects of snow, treat as follows. Remedy: steam with snow,[662] and should this fail foment[663] with water. Should she not then be cured, foment with curds.

Should the defect be due to cold and snow, it will be removed[155] by these remedies, but should it arise from a blow, then the cure is as follows. Remedy: draw a stick of lunar caustic twice across the eye, and she shall be whole. Should she not be whole, then procure a white cock and slay it according to ordinance, and remove its gall. (You must be in a state of ceremonial purity and must have performed the fixed ablutions.) Then cast and “mail” your hawk, and stand facing the Qibla.[664] With a pure heart and single faith, doubting not that the whiteness will disappear from your hawk’s eye, cry aloud, “O Holy God! Thou who canst melt the rocks of the mountains, remove this whiteness from my hawk’s eye.

Saying this, squeeze the cock’s gall into your hawk’s afflicted eye.

Should a cure not be effected the first time, repeat the remedy, using the same observances but a fresh cock-gall.[665] Please God she will recover, for this is a proved remedy.

Should your hawk’s[666] mouth become ulcerated, or break out in an eruption so that she is unable to eat,[667] then:—

Remedy: first bind a piece of cotton cloth on your finger,[156] which then introduce into the hawk’s mouth, and rub the eruption till the blood comes. Take sumac and gall-apple, pounded and mixed, and apply them with the finger protected as before. You must insert your finger right up to her throat, for the disease is sure to have spread thus far. Item: treat in the same way, substituting syrup of pomegranates. Then, for a few days, give her, when feeding, the bones and feathers of the neck of the birds she eats, but of a size that she can swallow them, only with difficulty. Should any excrescence remain in her throat, it will be carried down by the bones, and next morning the throat is again scraped and cleansed by the casting. Item: make a twist of cotton cloth, three or four fingers’ breadth in length. Grind barberries with their stones, and mix a little juice of willow leaves, and apply this freely with the cloth, which must be inserted as far as the crop.[668] Then withdraw the cloth, and if God pleases that ailment will be removed.

Swollen Palate.—If your hawk’s palate becomes swollen—and I have seen a hawk’s palate so swollen that she could not close her beak—then:—Treatment: cast your hawk and examine her mouth. If the swelling is red, brand it lengthways, in two places, with a packing needle, so that pus[669] may form and she may be cured. If the swelling is white and hard, it is an indication that it is of long standing, although it may hitherto have escaped your notice. You must make a long slit in the swelling and then remove the congealed white substance from its inside. After that rub the wound with black pepper, that it may not refill with matter. You must further feed the hawk on the hot lights[670] of a hare, and let her eat this flesh with the blood. Once a day wash out her mouth with either sumac juice or pomegranate syrup.

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Should your hawk be unable to “tire” with force, and should she draw her breath with difficulty and her crop become filled with air, it is a sign that the air passages of her nostrils are blocked. Treatment: for one or two days, give her, as “tiring” and food, the tough thigh of a fowl; for the exertion of pulling at this will induce a flow of water from her nostrils. Should this fail, pound some sneeze-wort[671] very fine, and put it in a fine reed; place one end of the reed on the hawk’s nostril, and blow into the reed so that the powder enters the nostril. After a few sneezes, there should be a flow of water from the nostrils, and the ailment should disappear. Item: mix the juice of coriander seed with the juice of a turnip-radish, and drop this into her nostrils, and she will be cured. Item: with a stick of log-wood, brand her skull from the base of the yellow cere of her beak, upwards, for a length of three barley-corns: if the brand be longer than three barley-corns, it will reach the brain-pan and be injurious. This is a last resort; for, as the Arab proverb has it, “The last of remedies is the cautery.”

Should your hawk get a swelling on the ear, which afterwards produces pus, the chances are that she will become deaf: if this disease does nothing more, it will at least render her useless for sport. This ailment is found in the long-winged, rarely in the short-winged, hawks, for it arises from an ill-fitting hood; that is to say, a hawk is fitted with a hood too large for her, which she consequently casts repeatedly; the irritated falconer then ties[158] a knot in the strap, and this knot, pressing on the ear, results in a wound[672] which refuses to heal. For this there is no cure.

I once had an excellent gazelle-saker that became afflicted with this disease. In spite of this ailment, however, she used to take daily, one, or two, or three gazelle. I treated her for two years without effect, and she then died.

If the falconer detects the injury in its initial stage and applies two leeches to the swelling, a cure may be effected. If not, no further treatment will avail. You will now understand why I cautioned you, in a previous chapter, against putting a new hood on a newly caught falcon, or on a falcon just taken up from the moult. Let the hood be soft and part-worn, and of a size that fits the head.

If your hawk have epilepsy—and I have owned and seen many epileptic hawks—when you fly her she will perhaps take the quarry, but just before you come up to render her assistance, she will let go, fall on her back, and utter strange cries in an unnatural voice; her wings and tail will be agitated, and there will be a flow of water from her mouth. Unless seized and “mailed,” she will not cease from her distressing struggles. In half an hour, perhaps, she will recover.

I once had a passage-saker, a very fine heron-hawk, that was so afflicted. One day in Qizil Rubāt̤[673] I flew her at a heron and both birds went ringing up high. Suddenly the fit attacked my hawk, and as though a bullet had struck her she fell to earth, turning over and over. She never recovered from her injuries.

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Treatment: pound and mix together half a mis̤qāl[674] of sal-ammoniac and half a mis̤qāl of sugar-candy, and make into a small round parcel like the little packages of sacred earth.[675] Have ready by your side cold water, luke-warm water, a squab, and a chicken-poult, for any delay or negligence is dangerous. In the morning, after sunrise, cast your hawk; make ten or twenty holes with a needle in the paper packet so that the contents may act quickly; put it down the hawk’s throat, and then give her a few bits of meat the size of a pea, to induce her to “put over,” so that the medicine may reach the lower stomach;[676] then set her on her perch to rest. In half an hour she will vomit. At the first vomit, it sometimes happens that she casts up two or three dead white worms, but this is not always the case. At the second or third vomiting, she will cast up the medicine packet, and also a “purse”[677] of yellow fat. After she has cast up these two things she will vomit no more. Now cast your hawk, and pour a good deal of tepid water down her throat,[678] and release her. Wait till she has twice muted and then again cast her, and this time pour cold water down her throat. Then set her on her perch. After she has muted once, cut the throat of the squab (or of the poult), and let her eat half of—that is, one side of—the breast,[679] but no feathers. If she is much out of sorts and won’t feed, pour the warm blood down her throat as it issues from the cut throat, and, chopping up the heart into bits, put them also down her throat; then after a little, when she has recovered, give her some of the breast. This treatment will cure her epilepsy. Item: brand[680] her neck with a line, at the junction of the body, and[160] vary her food every day, so that she may become as fat and stout[681] as a hawk in the mew. The disease will disappear. Item: get a sufficient quantity of olive oil and a little manna. Slay a cockerel, pull off the skin of the thigh whole, and fill the empty skin with the manna, the olive oil, and some old and whitened droppings of a dog. Please God, this will prove a perfect cure.

This disease is of three kinds. One arises from smoke and dust and dirt. The symptoms of all three are the same: if the hawk make the slightest exertion, she draws her breath with difficulty, and her body is agitated from the crop to the far end of the “keel bone.”[683] When she breathes, her tail and the feathers under the tail[684] heave, and the wings are carried loose and drooping.

Treatment: put the hawk in a dark room and keep her quiet, and fatten her up as much as possible. Give her three doses of castor oil,[685] on three alternate days, before feeding her. Keep water in front of her, that she may bathe and drink. Feed her daily on larks, with the bones and feathers, and on young pigeons. (On no[161] account feed her on pigeons reared on millet, for millet is poison to hawks). Fatten her up till the disease leaves her.

One variety of palpitation arises from moisture of temperament: the hawk pants with the slightest exertion and there is a watery discharge from the mouth, eyes, and nostrils, and she is continually wiping her eyes on her shoulders to clean them; probably she is costive[686] as well. Observe her when she mutes; if she mutes in small quantities at a time, the soft feathers in the region of the vent getting soiled with the mutes, it is a sign that her disease is complicated by costiveness. Treatment: make her as fat as you can, feeding her on good meats. Once, or twice, in the manner previously described, give her oil and manna and the whitened droppings of a dog. On alternate days, mix with her food either butter, or almond oil. If she still mute in patches, then:—Treatment: take oil of peach-kernels, with oil of filberts, and oil of blanched almonds, and mix a quantity equal to a sunjad;[687] then dip the cotton-wool end of the clyster-stick[688] in these three oils, and by its means give her an enema twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. Feed her, too, on young pigeons, and on larks, and on the flesh of the wild boar and of eagles, and, if it please God, she will recover. Item: get some sheep’s wool, and removing all burrs, etc., etc. from it, tease it out like carded cotton. Round about the middle or “waist” of this wool, tie a piece of silk of two or three strands in thickness, and about two spans in length. Wash the wool in warm water and bind a little meat to one end of it. Holding the end of the silk, induce the hawk to swallow the wool thus garnished with the meat. As soon as she has swallowed it, show her other meat to excite her cupidity and induce her to “put over” the wool now in her crop. As soon as you have ascertained by touch,[689] that the wool has reached the[162] lower stomach, pull the silk and withdraw it, and it will bring up with it any impurity there may be in the stomach.

If the hawk be a goshawk, or indeed any short-winged hawk, substitute cotton-wool for the sheep’s wool.

If the cotton-wool, or the sheep’s wool, be washed in warm water, or in the milk of a young girl or of a donkey, and then given to the hawk soaked with the milk, so much the better.

The third form of palpitation is due to a blow, and those skilled in Avian Pathology have named this, “Contusional and Incurable Palpitation.” This disease is probably due to the ill-temper of your falconer. Perhaps the weather has been cold and there has been snow[690] about: the hawk, suffering from the cold, has bated[691] incessantly till the ill-tempered falconer has, in his irritation, buffeted her and boxed her, and then “mailed” her in the skirt of his filthy coat. The result is that some ribs, or small bones, have got broken or injured. Or it may be that the hawk was low in condition and maddened by hunger, and in pursuit of her quarry dashed herself against a stone, or against a branch, and so broke a rib. Remedy: send for the falconer and show him the hawk; let him have thirty or forty cuffs over the head;[692] kick him out of your service and see that he does not get a place elsewhere, and set about procuring a new hawk for yourself. For “Contusional Palpitation” there is no treatment but this.

The symptoms of this disease are, that the soft feathers under the tail and round the vent are soiled by the mutes; that when muting the hawk raises her tail higher than usual, mutes with difficulty, and is unable to cast the mutes clear to a distance.

Treatment: feed the hawk for some days on the flesh of a[163] cockerel, sprinkling the flesh with the juice of the marsh-mallow;[694] feed her thus twice a day. Further, anoint the vent with almond or with olive oil. Item: vary her food, giving her pigeons and sparrows, and the larks called by the Arabs quṃburah. Apply the clyster-stick as already described, dipping the cotton-wool in oil of peach kernels, apricot kernels, and almonds; administer it before feeding her: give her also a pill of powdered sugar-candy[695] mixed in a pat of cow’s butter the size of two filberts. She will, please God, be cured. Keep water ever near her, that she may drink her fill. Item: take oil of apricot kernels, and powdered cummin seed,[696] a quantity equal to the size of a walnut. Sprinkle the powdered cummin seed on the vent; then anoint the vent and adjacent parts with the oil. Do this for three days in succession, and she shall be whole. This is the practice of the ancient falconers. Item: anoint her vent a few times with a mixture of oil of jasmine, white wax, and pitch.[697] Item: take marrow of the shin-bone of a goat and mix it with her food for a few days. If the goat be an old female, so much the better.

As mentioned in a previous chapter, the pulse of a human being in sound health has seventy-five beats to the minute, while a hawk in good health has a pulse of a hundred-and-twenty or a hundred-and-thirty. The pulse of all hawks is, however, not alike; for instance, as the shāhīn is faster and more powerful than any hawk, short-winged or long-winged, so, too, it has a faster pulse.

If you are unable to feel the pulse of a hawk in the second joint of her wing, or if after discovering it you find that its beating is too[164] rapid to be counted, know that this is a symptom of hectic fever. Another symptom is that both by day and by night, she puts her head under her wing at unusual times. Another symptom is an inordinate appetite: she will gorge till the meat appears in her throat, and even then tear at meat and throw it away, there being no more room in her crop; but the more good food she eats, the thinner she gets.

Another symptom is that she is unable to cross her wings, but lets them droop one on each side of her tail, leaving her oil-gland and loins uncovered. Another symptom is that she drinks and bathes more than usual.

If the disease be not of long standing but has reached the first or second stage only, it may admit of cure; but if it has reached the third stage, you may set about procuring a new hawk for yourself, for her case is hopeless.

Now this disease arises from both humidity of temperament, and from heat: if from the former there will be a slight discharge from the eyes and mouth. Treatment: feed her twice a day on pigeons, larks, sparrows, black chickens, and pork. Item: give her daily one white pepper corn;[699] and if you notice an improvement increase the dose by degrees till you can give as many as five pepper corns. Item: roughly crush some ginger and give her daily with her food a small piece the size of a pea. Item: grind finely a piece of cinnamon equal in size to a pea, and give it to her in her food. If the disease arises from heat of temperament, change her perch to another room and thus give her a change of air. Feed on jerboa rats, land tortoises, and cockerels. Instead of water, give her to drink the juice of ispaghul,[700] and sprinkle dried ispaghul seed on her afternoon meal, giving her also feathers with her meat. When the heat of her temperament abates, you will find that she will no longer drink the ispaghul juice; you must therefore exert your falconer’s skill and get her to take in the morning about two or three mis̤qāl[701] of the juice with her meat.

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If, on account of the abatement of her heat, she will in no wise touch ispaghul juice, you must resort to the device known amongst falconers as chālma. Now this is chālma: sever the thigh of a cockerel close to its body and draw back the skin to the knee-joint, reversing the skin in so doing. Next sever the skin at the knee-joint, and bind up the end firmly with silk. Into this bag put some ispaghul juice and also some of the seed, to the amount of an acorn in quantity, such a quantity in fact as the hawk can swallow with ease. While feeding your hawk, carelessly introduce the loose spare end of the skin bag, and get her to swallow it. If you cannot induce her to swallow it, you must use force. Every morning you must give her the juice of ispaghul, and every afternoon the dried seed; for this will cool her liver. She will cast up the seed every morning with the casting of feathers and bones. The quantity of ispaghul juice may be two or three mis̤qāl, but of the dried seed less than half a mis̤qāl so that she may find no difficulty in ejecting it with the morning casting. Please God, she will recover.

Item: take juice of long cucumbers and juice of small cucumbers,[702] and give it to her in the same way you would give ispaghul juice. First put down her throat a quarter of a mis̤qāl of manna; on the top of that administer the cucumber juice. Wait till she has muted three or four times and then feed her up for the day, giving her a moderate meal. Employ this treatment on three “alternate” days.

On no account should you give her manna after feeding her, but she may be allowed to drink as much cucumber juice as she pleases. Item: give her daily, if a female goshawk, one nuk͟hūd[703] of camphor, and if a male goshawk, half that quantity: to a sparrow-hawk give a quantity proportionate to her size. Fatten up the hawk as much as you can.

This disease, which is called qārishqa,[704] is commoner in Persia than elsewhere. From what I have observed, it arises from taking a moulting hawk out of the mew too soon, that is, while some of her feathers are still in blood. The hawk bates, injuring a young quill, and the blood dries up and putrifies; then the flesh near the root of the quill gets infected, and soon a tiny kind of maggot, similar to the “disease of parasites”[705] that sometimes infests man, is produced, and it eats away the root. The following case, I think, corroborates my opinion:—

I once had a very fine eyess-goshawk, brought to me from an eyrie in Mazenderan, just about a month before Autumn. I noticed that one of the two centre tail-feathers, called the qāpāq feathers, was broken close to the flesh, too close to admit of “imping.” I thought that as it was a young bird I might pull out the feather without fear, and that it would speedily grow again.[706] Accordingly with the utmost care I neatly removed the stump[707] with pincers. On examining it, I found some hundreds of minute insects the size of a poppy seed, wriggling about inside the quill. I examined them under a magnifying glass; they looked just like lice,[708] but were broader. It struck me that these were the cause of canker in quill feathers. I closed the end of the quill and circulated it for inspection amongst all my sporting friends and acquaintances. These parasites, after attacking and eating one quill, work their way under the flesh to the next, and so on. They have the same passion for feathers that white-ants[709] have for wood. If you examine carefully, with a glass, a feather that has broken off from a hawk afflicted with this disease, you will find that it has a dead appearance; it has not the water of life in it: the[167] marks of erosion will also be apparent. These insects are the cause of feather-rot, and naught else—but God knows best.

Treatment: first give her three doses of manna on alternate days, but give her no more manna than the quantity mentioned previously. Then cast her, and pull out the small feathers from round the diseased spot. If the flesh is black and swollen, it is a sign that the injury arises from a blow. Treatment: apply a leech to the injured spot and let it suck out the impure blood. Sprinkle salt on the wound, or apply ice to staunch the bleeding. Item: rub the injured spot with powdered stone or brick till the blood is near flowing; then apply the fouling of a tobacco-pipe. After this keep her loose in a room. Do this twice.

If, however, the spot be red, the disease is the second or parasitic kind. The treatment in both cases is the same, with a difference. Treatment: prick the red spot with a needle and induce a flow of blood. Mix vinegar and ox-gall, and paint it on the affected spot. Item: take carbonate of soda,[710] blue-stone, sal-ammoniac, “yellow aloes,”[711] and long pepper,[712] a grain[713] of each, and three black raisins: pound and mix. Prick the injured spot with a needle, and wash with strong vinegar. Then apply the powder and she will recover. This is the practice of the ancient falconers. Item: when the feather falls out, wait till a new one takes its place;[714] then before the stage has arrived when it will fall out, pluck it out by force and do this three times. The fourth time let the feather reach maturity. This, too, is a receipt of the ancient falconers.

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.

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If your hawk is ever pulling out the feathers from her breast, and thighs, and stomach, and has done so since she was young, and even after moulting has not forsaken the practice, know that the habit has become second nature to her, and is incurable. You must put up with this foulness in her, and fly her as she is. Do not, however, let her ever get too hungry; for in hunger she will pull out her feathers all the more. She is like one who has contracted the habit of always toying with his beard and moustache and pulling out the hairs: some men, too, I have seen who have a habit of ever plucking out the hair from their chests, and their armpits, and their pubes. Your hawk is like one of those and cannot be cured.

If, however, she has newly acquired the habit, it is a symptom of worms in the stomach.[721] Treatment: if a long-winged hawk, give her sal-ammoniac and sugar-candy, as previously described; but if a short-winged hawk give her, on alternate days, a few doses of manna. Perhaps the worms will be got rid of by this simple purging. Item: give her one nuk͟hūd of asafœtida, and by degrees increase the amount daily till you have reached five nuk͟hūd, so that she may void the worms either by vomiting or by purging. Item: rub gall and tobacco-water on the spots whence she plucks the feathers, and she will be cured:—

Item: pluck out all the feathers from the spot at which she worries, till the bare flesh shows. Mix a little Armenian bole with wine and old vinegar, and apply it. Fatten her up. Please God she will be cured. I myself have proved this receipt.[722]

If your hawk mope, and the feathers of her head stand on end, and her mutes, too, be red as though there were drops of blood in them, it is a sign that she is suffering from heat-stroke. Treatment: mix a little saffron and sugar-candy and give it to her at meals, concealed in a fold of meat: the quantity of the dose depends on the size and the constitution of the hawk. Feed her on cooling meats, such as cockerels, jerboa-rats, and tortoises. With every meal give her cucumber juice with juice of ispaghul (as previously mentioned under chālma[724]), so that her liver may be cooled thereby.

Akmaja is a disease akin to paralysis, palsy, and epilepsy, but is yet none of these three. The hawk grows thin without any apparent cause, and her tail and wings seem palsied. Sometimes this distressing symptom will so overpower her that she will at one time fall on her face, at another on her back, and be unable to sit on the fist. Sometimes, too, she will cast her “gorge”.[725] As a rule this disease, which generally occurs amongst short-winged hawks, is fatal. The cause of it is stale meat[726] (mutton, she-goat, or hare, two or three days old), given her by your ignorant falconer, who has afterwards placed her in a damp room. Treatment: at once brand her with a stick of log-wood, branding her four limbs with lines, and branding also her oil-bottle, her forehead, and between her nostrils from the direction of both eyes. Feed her on pigeons. Give her one nuk͟hūd of quinine:—

[171]

Give her that amount of pigeon’s flesh that will be digested[727] by two hours before sunset. In the afternoon kill another pigeon and chop up one side of the breast very fine, and mix with it the yolk of an egg, and give it to your hawk. Item: pound a little cinnamon[728] and give it to her in a fold of meat and on the top of her meal. Item: powder a little ginger very fine, and give it to her as a first mouthful in a fold of meat. Then let her tear at the breast of a pigeon, applying to it, as she does so, a little wine. You must be specially careful about feeding her twice a day and giving her just the right quantity in the morning, so that she may be empty and keen by the time of the afternoon meal. Item: give her in the morning one mis̤qāl of castor-oil.[729] Feed her on minced meat mixed with the yolk of an egg. If you observe any improvement, then two days later give her a second dose of castor-oil. Item: give her, before her food, one white peppercorn; and, if you observe any improvement, gradually increase the peppercorns till you can give as many as five. If she be not cured by this, repeat, “Verily to God do we belong: Verily to Him do we return,”[730] and set about procuring another hawk.

Know that this disease is of two kinds, and that gazelle-hawks are peculiarly subject to it; for a keen bālābān will stoop with force at the hard head of the gazelle, thereby injuring her feet;[733] from the blow a small vein in the sole of the foot gets torn or bruised, and the blood under and on the surface becomes corrupt, and soon black spots appear in the sole: one day the foot is well and one day bad, till the beginning of Spring, when the trees put out new leaves; then the “pinne” too breaks bounds and soon cripples the hawk completely.

The second kind also arises from a bruise: the spot swells, but there is no discolouration, nor any sign of black spots. This kind is called by the Arabs ḥafā,[734] and the cure of ḥafā is easy. Treatment of the first form, i.e., “mīk͟hak”: the sole is sure to be hot, so make a dough of ispaghul seed and put it on a piece of blue[735] cloth, and at nightfall bind it on your hawk’s feet. Watch her for half an hour lest she tear it off before the ispaghul has dried and adhered to the foot. In the morning rip up the cloth, and let your hawk rest, having previously, by spreading cotton-wool seed, prepared a place of rest for her. If she lie down, so much the better. In two or three nights’ time the swelling will disappear, but the discolouration will still remain. Continue the treatment nightly till the ispaghul poultice comes away with that blackness adhering to it. Item: thread a needle with ten or twelve horse-hairs, and pass it in from the outside[736] of the foot and[173] bring it out at the “blackness” in the foot. Knot the horse-hairs in such a way that you can pull them upwards and downwards. Two or three times daily, pull the hairs to induce a flow of the foul matter. Do this for forty days, or for two months, till the black core moves with the hairs. By the time the upper knot will pass through the foot and come out at the under side of it, she will be cured. Item: pierce the discolouration in the sole with a needle, forcing in the needle for the distance of two or three barley-corn lengths. Then stick to the eye of the needle a bit of touch-wood,[737] the size of a filbert; set a light to it and let it burn till it is consumed to ashes; then withdraw the needle and anoint the place with oil of walnuts. In two or three days’ time the blackness, together with the core which is the real corn, will come away. Do nothing to the hole that will be left, except anoint it. Item: if both feet are affected remove the jess from the worse of the two, and break the tarsus bone.[738] Keep the hawk in a dark room on a bed of cotton-seed, in depth about four fingers’ breadth. The room must be so dark that the hawk cannot distinguish night from day. Once a day anoint her leg with clarified wax and mummy-oil.[739] It is not necessary to set or bind the leg. If your hawk is young, say of one or two moults, her leg will set in twenty days. If old, say of ten or fifteen moults, it will take forty days. The younger the hawk the sooner will the leg set. In this respect a hawk resembles man; for the broken bone of a five-year-old child will join in five days, of a ten-year-old child in ten days, of a fifty-year-old man in fifty days, and of a ninety-year-old in ninety days. However, a man of ninety years will, during these ninety days that he is laid up, contract so many other ailments that he will die.

[174]

The same rule applies to hawks, too. Now, as soon as you see that when you throw the meat to your hawk she grasps it with her broken leg, change the jess from the sound to the unsound leg, and then break the former as you did the latter. Item: (and the best remedy of all) take a broken piece of a mercury-backed mirror, grind it very fine, and sift it through taffeta, so that it is as fine as collyrium of antimony. Then mix with it the gall of a black goat, and make it into the consistency of an ointment. Bind this ointment on to the feet of your hawk in the morning, removing it in the evening. After removing it, let her rest for half an hour. Again bind on this poultice, removing it in the morning. Again, after half an hour, bind on a fresh one and leave it on till sunset. That blackness will by this time have been drawn out and will protrude somewhat. Take hold of the blackness with tweezers and gently pull it. By the dispensation of the Creator the corn will come out by the root.[740] Fill the cavity left, with powdered antimony, and see that the feet are kept quite dry. This cure was invented by the writer and has been proved by experiment. Item: take fresh hot cow-dung and add to it double the quantity of salt.[741] Apply the mixture thickly to the perch, and renew twice a day, morning and evening, for a month or forty days. She will be entirely cured. Doubtless you will say that to keep a hooded falcon on such a perch may be easy; but what about an unhooded yellow-eyed hawk? This is my answer: take your hawk, t̤arlān, qizil, or sparrow-hawk—or whatever she may be—into a dark room and drive into the wall, as a perch, a wooden peg of proper thickness,[742] but not so round that the cow-dung will not stand on it: the perch should be broad. The hawk should be so tied to this perch that when she bates she will remain hanging. For the first day or two she must be watched by your man, for the heat of the cow-dung and salt will certainly make her “bate.” When she “bates,” go not near her; let her “bate” till she is exhausted: then, when she is quite still, and has ceased beating[175] her wings, raise her and replace her on the perch. Every time she “bates” act in this manner. After a little, she will put up with the burning in her feet, finding it a lesser evil than hanging head downwards. In two or three days her feet will become numbed and she will no longer feel pain in them, and will therefore cease to “bate.” You must put on such a quantity of cow-dung that the hawk’s feet are buried in it. The fresher and warmer the cow-dung, the more efficacious the effect and the speedier the cure.[743] You should, in fact, tether a cow near the “mew” so as to have a fresh supply of dung ever at hand.

Now as regards the second form of this disease, called ḥafā, the symptoms are the same as in mīk͟hak, except that in ḥafā the blackness is absent from the sole of the feet. Treatment: bind on her feet, a few nights, powdered ispaghul seed as previously described, and she shall be cured. Item: pound up a little of the skin or rind of sweet pomegranate,[744] and add thereto a little salt. Apply this a few times to the perch, in the manner described, and the disease will disappear. Item: take acorns and gall-apples and pound them together, add camel’s urine to make a dough, and bind on to the feet a few times, and she will be cured. Item: take camel’s urine and green ispaghul,[745] and pound together; boil slightly; remove and place on the ground to cool. When luke-warm, immerse the hawk’s feet for half an hour, and the ill will be removed. Item: take her on the fist and carry her every day, and lure her. The glove and “carriage”[746] will cure her better than anything else.

Item: keep her on a rough stone or rock, instead of on a perch.[747]

I have myself tested these remedies for mīk͟hak and ḥafā, and I have certainly found them beneficial.

Sometimes a hawk loses all power in one of its toes and is quite unable to grasp its food with it. Treatment: apply a leech. If this fail, brand the toe lengthways with a needle, taking care that the tendon[748] is not burnt. If these two remedies fail, waste no time in further treatment, and “labour not at beating cold iron.” Many a hawk have I seen with this disease, but seldom a cure. The long-winged hawks are more liable to it than the short-winged. Perhaps the injury arises from a strain, by the hawk grasping her food too tight and straining or tearing a tendon. Now a severed tendon will not join. Should such an accident happen to your hawk, God grant that it fall on one of her small toes, for that is not so serious; but if it happen to one of her “hunting talons”[749] she is ruined; she can do no good at all.

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[177] 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[178] 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.

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Obstruction due to a “Casting.”—Now, my son, a casting of bone, or of feathers, or of wool, or of cotton-wool, may get stuck in a hawk’s stomach[760] at the end of the sternum,[761] and the hawk be unable to eject it upwards or downwards. Symptoms: If you place your finger on the stomach, you will be able to perceive a hard substance the size of a large walnut, and this although you may have given no casting.[762] The hawk will not be able to eat more meat than an amount equal to one sparrow; she will try to, but there will be no room, and gradually she will waste away till she dies. Treatment: in the morning, before feeding, give her an emetic, such as the fouling of a tobacco-pipe, or the juice of black raisins;[763] rub these on her tongue and on the inside of her mouth. Watch her till she shows signs of vomiting; then, as she works her neck from side to side “to cast,” that obstruction will come up as far as the throat but no farther. You must promptly grasp her by the throat, an assistant holding her firmly by the legs, while with a probe or tweezers or other instrument you somehow or other extract the obstruction, and so cure her. For a few days after this, mix her meat with the yolk of an egg, but beware of giving any feathers or bones or casting of any kind. Item: Should she not vomit, or should she not bring up the obstruction, then cut some mutton into small pieces and cast it into warm water, and give her of that an amount equal to a sparrow. Then, after a minute or so, give her a small amount of sal-ammoniac and sugar-candy, in the manner previously explained, and watch her. As soon as she begins to vomit, and the obstruction appears, seize her and remove it as just explained above. Item: if this expedient also fail, then cast her and tie her up firmly in some quiet spot protected from wind and draughts. Have by you ready a needle and silk, and yellow aloes powdered and mixed with antimony. Have the hawk’s legs separated wide apart. Now, the hawk being on her[180] back with her head away from you and raised, you will find at the root of the thigh and at the end of the sternum a fine skin:[764] pluck out the small feathers[765] from this, so as to lay bare the skin. Then with a sharp pen-knife make a slit lengthways in the skin, two fingers’ breadth in length. After the “skin,”[766] you will find a second and a third “fine-skin,”[764] which also slit. Now, with the greatest care, insert two fingers, and lift up and expose the guts to view. Quickly and dexterously open the stomach, replace it in its proper position, and after that sew up, one by one, the three “fine-skins” and lastly the outer “skin.” On the outside wound, sprinkle the powdered aloes and antimony, and then free the hawk and let her rest. Feed her every day on the yolks of eggs: if she will not eat them, pound a little meat, about half a sparrow in quantity, and mix it with the yolks of two eggs[767] and give it to her in the morning, and again at noon, and in the afternoon. If she eats this meat and “puts it over,” again give her the yolks of two eggs with pounded meat. Feed her thus for two days. On the third day give her minced meat with the yolk of egg, and feed her thus for three days. Then for three days more give her meat, cut up into bits the size of a filbert and mixed with the yolk of an egg. During this period you must on no account let her pull or tear at her food; for the exertion of pulling will burst the stitches, either inside or out, and if the stitches of even one of the skins gives way, she is destroyed. Anyone accustomed to caponize cocks will have no difficulty in performing this operation: the two operations are practically the same.

Obstruction due to a Blow.—There is another form of this disease, which does not arise from a retained “casting”: to cure this is an easier operation than that of cutting out the “casting” as above. The symptoms are the same: the hawk, even if a female goshawk, cannot eat more than one sparrow in quantity, and has in its stomach a hard substance the size of a walnut. If you give her her sparrow’s portion of meat with feathers, she will cast in the morning but the hard substance will still remain present in the intestine. This disease is generally found in long-winged hawks,[181] since it generally results from a kick in the guts from a gazelle, or from a buffet by a goose’s wing (and a buffet from a goose’s wing is worse than a blow from a club), or from an injury from the beak or claws of a crane, or from such an ill-judged stoop at some quarry that the stomach has come in violent contact with the ground.[768] The injury produces an internal hemorrhage, and the blood gradually congeals and fills up the stomach, and so reduces its capacity that it cannot contain its full quantity. The congealed blood gradually becomes converted into a white substance like cheese, day by day growing harder and pressing more on the stomach, till at last the substance petrifies and the bird dies. If the hawk is treated before “petrefaction” has set in, she can be cured. Treatment: the operation is the same as in the previous case; the cheese-like substance must be cut out and the stomach freed. The hawk must be fed after the operation in the same way.

After these operations, you must on no account let your hawk bathe till the scab[769] formed by the aloes and antimony drops off of its own accord; for bathing before this may kill your hawk. This is a rule that applies to every kind of wound, whether inflicted by the claw of an eagle or by the foot of a deer. Should your hawk be thirsty, you may, after five or six days have elapsed, offer her water in a cup, letting her drink a few beakfuls, enough to allay her thirst.

In all hawks, whether long-winged or short, seven flight-feathers, by God’s creation, show from under the coverts called yār-māliq,[770] while in the tail there are in all twelve feathers. Very, very rarely, indeed, are eight flight-feathers apparent under the yār-māliq; but occasionally fourteen or even sixteen feathers occur in the tail. Birds with the latter number are in no way better than birds with the normal twelve.

My son, I will now give thee sage counsel: do thou give ear to my advice and store it up in thy mind; for so shalt thou find future salvation and present success.

Monition the First. Be not a liar. Although it is said, and commonly believed, that all sportsmen are liars, still do thou employ no falsehood. Shayk͟h Saʿdī says:—

Second. Act not perfidiously with thy friends and companions. Should the hawk of a rival “put in” its partridge and “fall at mark,” and none see it but thee, conceal not the fact from the enquiring owner; nay, more, go thyself and point out to him the lost hawk, for perhaps some day he may be able to return the favour.

Third. Steal not the hawk or hound of an acquaintance, for theft is one of the vilest qualities in a man. Moreover thou wilt live in dread lest the owner should come along and proclaim thee dog-stealer and hawk-stealer. If thou findest a lost hawk, proclaim it or return it to the owner,[773] so shalt thou lay up great merit for thyself in the world to come, and also prove thy nobility of mind in this. Just think of the enormity of ensnaring a lost hawk and bearing it home, while the anxious and distressed owner wanders in the snow, from peak to peak, calling her and searching for her—you in your snug home the while.

Certainly the Almighty will not be pleased, and before many days elapse, some retaliation[774] will overtake thee. My boy, copulating[183] with the penis of others is poor sport: refrain or you’ll fall into evil repute.

Fourth. Should an enemy loose a hawk and the hawk happen to come into thy possession, take it thyself and return it to him; for thy generous action will remove his enmity, and, should it not do so, men will extol thee and revile him: if thou do not act thus, then leave his hawk alone and make as though thou hadst not seen it, for often have I seen an evil man quarrel with his comrades about a single partridge, and the next day the lost hawk of a comrade having by chance fallen into his evil clutches he has killed it and buried it. Do thou avoid such practices, else neither in this world nor the next wilt thou escape punishment.

If your hawk, in pursuit of a water-fowl, happen to fall into the water in the depth of Winter, she will, if you do not apply remedies, certainly perish.[775] Treatment: if the hawk has taken the quarry, give her its warm heart and liver. Then “mail” her, place her in the bosom of a falconer and send him home. He should carry the hawk into the bath[776] or into a warm room and there take her out of his bosom and “unmail” her; and if she have digested the heart and liver he gave her, he should give her a proper meal of warm chicken. Item: mail the hawk and light a fire. Place the hawk in your waist-shawl, or in the skirt of your cloak, or in a handkerchief, and hold her some distance from the fire so that she may be gradually[184] warmed through: feed her as described above. Item: should you be in a spot where fuel is unobtainable, “mail” your hawk, place her in your horse’s nosebag and put the nosebag on the horse’s head. Then mount and ride hard for home. The horse’s breath will give life to your hawk: it will save her from death. Arrived home, feed her. Though by this expedient the hawk’s feathers will get ruffled and perhaps broken, still this is a lesser evil.

Should you be caught in the snow far from your stage and have no means of procuring food for your hawks—a deadly cold wind springing up in your teeth, your hawks will certainly perish, unless fed. Remedy: at once dismount and bind the forearm of your horse. With the point of your pen-knife open the vein;[777] hold a cup underneath so that the blood may collect and congeal in it; then give this blood to your hawk that she escape death.

Should your hawk fall into a stream and be swept away,[778] and when recovered be lifeless, the treatment, even though the hawk has been apparently dead for half an hour, is as follows. Treatment: light a fire and lay the hawk down by the side of it. Collect the hot ashes under the wings and heap ashes on the back, and as soon as the ashes cool, pile on other ashes, fresh and warm.[185] The ashes must not be so hot as to burn the feathers. In a short time, by God’s decree, the dead hawk will come to life. This remedy is suitable for a man also, or, indeed, for any beast that has been drowned. It is efficacious even up to half or three quarters of an hour after insensibility. I have several times successfully tried this remedy on man, beast, and bird.

Never forget the advice I will now give you. First: borrow nothing from any man, neither one penny nor a million; for if your request be granted, you are under an eternal obligation and must ever carry out the orders of him who hath obliged you.[779] Borrowing hawks, and dogs, and greyhounds, which are instruments of the chase—bad though such borrowing be—does not place you under a very great obligation, and further, should the loan be refused, it is no great slight to you.

Second: Three things you should never lend to any friend or sportsman; your own special horse, your own special gun, and your own special hawk. Lending any one of these is like lending your wife; therefore, my friend, lend none of these; for, if you do, the bands of friendship will be changed for the bonds of enmity. Bestow things freely, if you like, for giving is generosity.

“Halsband” dangerous in Hilly or Wooded Country.—

Third: before you go hawking in hilly or woody country, remove the “halsband”[780] from your goshawk’s neck, and this for two[186] reasons: (1) the “halsband” interferes with her foot-work when she puts in; she perhaps gets her foot entangled in it, and the partridge or pheasant goes out at the other side of the bush; (2) it often happens that a lost hawk is found hanging dead from a branch, suspended by its “halsband.” Hence in hilly and woody country the hawk should be freed from what is there an encumbrance.

“Halsband” necessary in the Plains.—In plains, however, a “halsband” is necessary to support the hawk when she is cast off and to prevent a strain to her loins: for, in the plains, you put your horse into a gallop that your hawk may start from the fist with the force of a bullet,[781] and to this impetus you add the force of your arm when casting her. However, when flying at chukor and seesee in the hills, the flight is down-hill, and the hawk has the advantage of gravity, so it is unnecessary to use hand-force in casting her.

Perhaps a goshawk or a sparrow-hawk may come into your possession that is naturally addicted to the vice of soaring;[782] that is, when you cast her at any quarry she will either take it at once, or, failing to do so, will give up and take to soaring and soon disappear from view. With such hawks there are three courses to be pursued, all three of which I have tested and proved.

First device.—Slightly brand the oil-bottle or oil-gland, to produce inflammation. Then thread a needle with two or three threads of silk, and wax them well to strengthen them. At a distance of three fingers’ breadth below the hawk’s oil-gland, insert the needle into the first tail-feather, and bring it out at[187] the twelfth; draw it just so tight that when the tail is spread there will be not more than an interval of a finger’s breadth between each two feathers. When a hawk “soars,” she spreads out her whole tail. Now this silk thread will prevent her spreading her tail to her heart’s content: when she feels the unnatural constraint she will settle and give up the attempt to soar.

Second device.—Cut off four of her flight-feathers on one side on a level with the jarka[783] feathers, laying the severed feathers aside in a safe place till wanted.[784] If the hawk is a sparrow-hawk, go and fly her at quail: if a goshawk, take her into the field and fly her at quarry from a height (giving her the help of gravity), so that she may know that she has lost pace and is lop-sided. Fly her thus with shortened wings for a few days. Certainly, for two or three days, she will take no quarry. The next time she settles, call her from the ground to your fist and feed her up, and give up all thoughts of the quarry. Treat her like this for a few days. Now, when you see that, on failing to take her quarry, she sits on the ground, after she has done so once or twice, imp one of the cut feathers and again fly her. Fly her for four days in succession, every day carefully imping, with a fine needle, one feather. She will have quite forgotten her inclination to “soar.”

Third device.—Pinch her in flesh considerably. If the weather is cold, every now and then give her a “snack” so that her stomach may not be empty and the cold may not cut her and kill her. Fly her from a height with the help of gravity. If she fails to take her quarry on account of her low condition, she will not attempt to soar, but will sit down; then call her to the fist and feed her up. Now gradually bring her back into her[188] proper flying condition.[785] She will have forgotten her vice of soaring.[786]

I once had a very fine young shikra sparrow-hawk (pīqū), which showed much sport to me and my friends at quail. However, whenever she failed to take her quarry, she used to take to soaring. I cut off four of her flight-feathers, as described above, and for a few days succeeded in taking quail with her merely by the force of my throw,[787] until she quite gave up all thought of soaring: when she failed to take the quarry she sat on the ground. I then imped her four feathers, one by one, in four days. She continued to fly right well, and never again attempted to soar. This device is an invention of your humble servant.

Note of warning.—Should your goshawk, when flown at chukor or seesee, give up the pursuit half way and take to soaring, and should another partridge rise[788] and the hawk then leave its soaring and start in pursuit, either taking the partridge in the air or on its putting it, on no account reward her: give her no food at all, for if you do you will confirm her in the habit of soaring. Had not this second partridge risen, your hawk would certainly have soared away out of view.

It sometimes happens that a bālābān trained to heron or crane gives up ringing after a heron, or gives up a flight at a crane, and that a duck[789] or an hubara gets up under her and that she comes[189] down on it and kills it. Go and lift up the hawk and her quarry, and if there be water near, duck both of them well till the hawk lets go. She will not do such a thing a second time.[790]

Before setting down long-winged hawks that have been flown at great quarry, it is necessary to brand their nostrils, and this is especially necessary in the case of gazelle- and crane-hawks; for the orifice of the nose of a long-winged hawk is a pit, and when the throat of a gazelle is cut and the hawk pulls at the spurting throat, her nostrils become filled with blood, which congeals and stops the passage of her breath; the blood cannot be completely removed by washing, for the nostril is like a well. Take a packing needle and make it red-hot and brand the “button”[791] in the centre of the nostril, and with the point of the needle clean out the tube of the nostril shaping it like a spout,[792] so that you may hereafter be able to rinse out the nostril and remove the congealed blood.

For long-winged hawks flown at large quarry, especially for[190] gazelle- and crane-hawks, branding the tube of the nostril is essential. Perhaps you will say, “Why has not the All-knowing God created hawks with noses ready branded?” The reply is that in a wild state these hawks prey on small quarry, such as pigeons and sand-grouse and larks, and, what is more, at their own leisure they first plume the quarry and then eat it, so that only their beaks get defiled by the blood and these are cleaned on the ground after the meal. But the trained hawk is artificially flown at gazelle and crane, and out of her hungry eagerness she buries all her head in the throat of the quarry as soon as it is cut. Now the main artery in a gazelle’s throat will send the blood spouting out for ten paces’ distance, and so, too, with a crane.

If your hawk has worked hard and taken her quarry and you come up and see that she is blown, that her beak is open and her wings are loose, on no account feed her up, or you will make her ill; or else she will not fly with zest for three or four days. Now the reason is this: from the violence of her exertions the blood and fat in her body have become mixed, and her quarry too, owing to its fear, has exerted its utmost efforts to escape, and in this state you kill it and feed her on it. Now Ḥāris̤ bin Kilda, one of the most noted physicians in the time of the Lord of the Prophets[793] (God’s peace on Him and his Family) said to Nūshīravān the Just, “Eat not when thou art in a state of excitement”; and this maxim appears to be applicable to all living things. Therefore cut the quarry’s throat—letting your falcon see you do it—and hood her on her quarry, and remove her. “Carry” her for at least half an hour[794] till she has roused twice or thrice and her beak is closed, and she has collected and crossed her wings, and regained her wind. Then remove her hood close to her quarry and feed her upon it.

[191]

With goshawks, however, and with merlins, too, flown at larks, cut the throat of the quarry and let the hawk “plume”[795] it thoroughly and then eat. As a goshawk has no hood, you cannot treat her as just described for a falcon.

The reason that hawks in a wild state keep in health is, that after taking the quarry, they are forced to wait till they have “plumed” it before eating it; for this is Nature’s law. Do thou likewise follow Nature.

Before you go out hawking, see, before you mount, that you have with you various bird-catching apparatus, such as a sparrow-net, a sparrow-hawk net, and a du-gaza; for out hawking you will frequently come across a goshawk, or a sparrow-hawk, or a saker; if you have the necessary apparatus and can prove your skill by catching one of these, just see what pleasure it will give you.[796] I once was flying a favourite passage-saker at a heron, and the falcon had rung up into mid-heaven and was on the point of taking the quarry, when suddenly an eagle[797] appeared and seized my falcon in mid-air and slew her. I and my men galloped after the brute to rescue the falcon, but she was dead. The bastard that had made my liver into roast meat[798] went and settled on a rock, but I had with me only a sparrow-hawk net, and with a sparrow-hawk net it is not possible to catch an eagle; for an eagle will not come to a sparrow-hawk net, or a sparrow-net[799]—or if it does come, it carries it away. I suddenly spied a kestril perched on a stone, and set up my sparrow-hawk du-gaza[799] in front of it. The poor bird, through vain greed, fell into the snare and into my clutches. I pulled a few[192] hairs out of my horse’s tail and made four or five strong nooses, and I skinned the sparrow.[800] I tied the feathers into the kestril’s claws and concealed the nooses amongst the feathers. I then half-seeled the kestril’s eyes and cast it into the air, but the murderous eagle was not attracted; it ignored the kestril. Suddenly a buzzard (sār) appeared, and, stooping at the feathers in the kestril’s claws, got entangled in the nooses. Both birds fell to the ground. I galloped and secured the buzzard. Adding to the feathers, and strengthening the nooses, I half-seeled the buzzard’s eyes and treated it as I had treated the kestril. The buzzard rose in the air; the eagle saw it, and rose after it to rob from it those tempting feathers; little it dreamt that the hunter would be hunted. It rose and made a glorious stoop; then, its fingers inside those nooses, it fell to earth along with the buzzard. I murdered the murderer and rejoiced. So great was my exultation you might almost have fancied my falcon had not been slain. Now, you see you should always have with you complete apparatus for all kinds of sport and fowling, even to fishing tackle, for each sport has its own peculiar delight.

Should an eagle slay and devour your hawk before your eyes and then clean its talons in the ground, and should you, having with you a chark͟h trained to eagles, cast it at the eagle and take it, and then execute various mutilating punishments[801] on it—why, what delight can equal this?

If wheat be soaked three times in the froth of a mast camel and then dried and given to birds to eat, they will fall senseless. Also if beans be boiled in rats-bane,[802] and then scattered in a spot where common cranes, and wild geese, and crows, and choughs collect,[193] those that eat thereof will fall down in a swoon, and if left alone will become ḥarām.[803] When you take these birds, cut their throats and at once rip open the stomach and cast away the contents, so that the poison may not spread to the flesh.[804]