The Bāz-nāma-yi Nāṣirī--A Persian Treatise on Falconry

[500 copies of this book have been printed]

TO
HIS EXCELLENCY
THE ʿALA^U ’L-MULK

formerly
Governor-General of Kirmān
and
Persian Baluchistan

THIS TRANSLATION IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

In Memory
of
Certain Days not Unpleasant when we Met in the

BĀG͟H

AND MINGLED OUR TEARS OVER OUR

EXILE

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:—

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 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 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 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 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]

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 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.

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 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 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]

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, 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, 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, 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.

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 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. 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]

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.

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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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] 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 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.

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 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]

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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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; 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] 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]

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 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.

[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 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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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, 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.”

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 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 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 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]

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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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]

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.

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, 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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 “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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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]

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 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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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.

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.

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]

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:—

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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, 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.

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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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, 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]

If you lose a hawk when out hawking and do not recover her till the next day or a few days after, know that, whether she be a young hawk of the year or a moulted[805] hawk, she will ever after be a trouble to you, for her nature will have changed for the worse, especially if she has preyed for herself while out. As for me, I would not keep her; my friends may please themselves.

This book, by the aid of the Munificent King, was finished on the day of Wednesday, in the month of Zū ’l-Qaʿda the Sacred, in the year 1285[807] of the Flight of the Prophet; and it contains the Views and Experience of Taymūr Mīrzā, son of Ḥusayn ʿAlī Mīrzā, and bearer of the title of Governor of the Province of Fārs.

PRINTED FOR BERNARD QUARITCH, 11, GRAFTON STREET, LONDON, W.,
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