TRAINING THE PASSAGE SAKER TO COMMON HERON[580]
To train the _bālābān_ to heron, she must first be trained, as already
described, to a lure[581] made of the wings of a common crane.
When she knows the lure well, get a live chicken and tie it by the leg
to the lure, with a string about twenty inches long. Lure the hawk
from a long distance, casting into the air, two or three times, the
lure garnished with the chicken, so that the hawk may come with force
and eagerness and seize the chicken. Cut the chicken’s throat and feed
up the hawk. Let her kill two or three fowls in this manner, so that
she may come with eagerness to the lure.
Now go out into the open country and find a night-heron,[582] get
close to it and cast off your hawk at it. * * *.[583]
If you find a night-heron on the edge of a small stream, cast off your
hawk, and should she take it, feed her up.[584] If, however, she will
not fly it, you must take one with a shahin or with a goshawk and in
the morning give it to her alive as a flying train: if she will not
take it, bind a little meat on its back. Fly her at this same “train”
again in the evening. When she will readily take the “train,” you
must fly her at one or two wild night-herons and at one or two purple
herons. * * *.[585]
Now procure a bagged common heron[586] and on its broad _yār
māliq_[587] feathers tie a piece of meat _very firmly_ so that there
is no possible chance of your hawk being able to disengage it and go
off with it. Hold the heron by one wing, and get your assistant to
stand some distance off with the hawk. When the _bālābān_ binds to the
meat, let her pull and eat a little: then remove her. You must now
seel the heron’s eyes so that it may not suddenly ring up[588]—better
still, bind two or three of its flight-feathers together so that it
may run on the ground and extend its wings.[589] As soon as the hawk
takes the train feed her up.
On the morrow, again tie meat on to the heron’s back, but unbind the
flight-feathers so that it may fly well. Release the heron, and when
it has flown ten or twelve paces unhood and cast off your hawk. As
soon as she takes it, give her only a little meat and fly her again
in the evening in the same way. Do this for several days, gradually
reducing the quantity of meat on the heron’s back.[590] As soon as
your hawk flies the heron in style, seizing it by the neck without
regarding the meat, cut the heron’s throat and feed her up.[591] Next
day procure a fresh heron but tie no meat on its back. Let it fly, and
when it has flown a good distance unhood and cast off your hawk. When
she takes the heron, feed her up. Withdraw the dead heron from her
grasp and cast it to a distance of ten or twelve yards that she may
know that that is her dead quarry;[592] then let her go and settle on
it and take two or three beakfuls. Again withdraw and cast the dead
heron to a little distance, but do not let the hawk go: let her “bate”
towards it once or twice and then hood her. Wash off any blood spots
and clean the “nares”.[593]
Now procure another heron, one strong of flight, that will ring up.
Get an assistant to mount some high place—a place about a hundred ell
high[594]—and release the heron. You must be mounted, and, hawk on
fist, take stand below this spot. Remove the hood of the hawk and let
her discover the heron above her. She will have to exert herself to
get above it, and if, after getting above it, she makes two or three
stoops at it[595] before binding, what better? Feed her up.
Next day, go and find a wild heron in an easy and suitable spot, but
have with you as a “make-hawk”[596] a _bālābān_ that is fully trained
to this flight. First cast off your young hawk. She will, of course,
make four or five stoops at the heron, but should the heron commence
to “ring” and the hawk show signs of slackening, then at once cast off
the “make-hawk,” so that the jealousy of the young hawk may be excited
and they may together take the quarry. Feed up the young hawk _well_,
so that you may give her washed meat[597] the day following.
As long as your hawk, while ringing up with the heron, keeps
beating[598] her wings quickly, it is a sign that she is trying to get
above it; but the moment she ceases to beat, and begins to sail,[599]
she has given up. In this case, at once call her down to the lure of
crane’s wings, and as soon as she comes reward her by killing, under
the lure, either a chicken or a pigeon, feeding her up well; for in
the opinion of falconers this dropping from a height to the lure is
better than taking ten herons: she is now your property; up till now
she has been merely a loan.
Next day[600] go and find a heron in an easy place, and first cast off
your young hawk at it. As soon as she has made one or two stoops, cast
off the “make-hawk” (before the heron commences to ring) so that they
may stoop at it alternately and the two may take it together.
On the following day feed her lightly;[601] and on the day following
that, again fly her at a heron. If she is in her proper condition[602]
and not too fat, and is also hungry, it is impossible for her to fail,
even if the heron ring up into the Seventh Heaven[603]—unless, of
course, an eagle interferes or the heron drops into a broad stream
that cannot be crossed. Should either of these mishaps occur, lure
her without delay, and feed her _well_. In the latter case, you may
consider she has taken this heron: it is as though she had done so. On
the morrow, please God, she will not fail.
If your hawk has had a hard flight after a heron, she should be fed up
on it, and not flown a second time that day. If, however, she kills
very quickly and without exertion, there is no harm in giving her a
second flight.
If you want your saker to fly heron well, you should keep her for this
flight alone and not fly her at anything else.
A young passage saker in the first or immature plumage,[604] is far
better for this flight than the “intermewed” hawk,[605] for, after the
moult, a hawk becomes heavy, and cannot ring up after a heron. For one
or two moults a hawk will indeed kill heron in a sort of fashion,[606]
but after three or four moults she is useless for this flight;[607]
you must procure a young _bālābān_[608] for it.
FOOTNOTES:
[580] _Ḥuqār_, corrup. of the Arabic _ʿuqār_, which is possibly also
the name of the white egret. In some parts of Persia and in the
Kapurthala State in the Panjab, the common heron is called _būtīmār_.
Sakers are not as easily entered to heron as they are to hubara or to
hare.
[581] _T̤alba_, P., “a lure”: in India _dalba_, corrup. of _t̤alba_.
In Baṣrah and Baghdad the lure is called _baftara_, but in Kwet and
Bahrain Island _milwā,iḥ_, root unknown.
[582] _Vāq_, “night-heron”; in some parts of the Panjab _wāqwāq_; in
the Kapurthala State _awānk_.
[583] A short description by the Author, of the night-heron, being
unnecessary, is here omitted.
[584] Sakers as a rule do not fly this quarry unless entered by
trains. The flesh of the night-heron is not injurious to sakers,
_vide_ page 137, note 591.
[585] _Jarda_, evidently the purple heron. A few lines describing this
species are omitted. The purple heron on the wing looks nearly as
large as the common heron. It is, however, a feeble quarry; it is very
slow in flight and is unable to shift from a stoop. The flesh is not
as coarse or fishy as that of the common heron.
[586] A saker that kills purple heron will kill common heron. In any
case a saker that has killed night-heron will take a _train_ of the
common heron without the back being garnished with meat.
[587] _Vide_ note 474, page 112.
[588] It is very rarely indeed that a bagged heron will attempt to
ring up. If once taken by a hawk, it will generally, when the hawk
gets close to it, drop to the ground.
[589] It is always advisable to give “trains” flying, especially to
sakers. Sakers do not, however, require flying trains of hubara.
[590] It is not necessary to tie meat on the heron’s back even for a
saker, and most certainly not necessary when the hawk has already been
flown at purple herons or night-herons. However, sakers are not spoilt
by being given many trains as are peregrines: they do not easily
become what Indians call _bā,ūlī-band_ or “train-bound.” No matter how
or where a train is given, hawks at once recognize that it is not an
ordinary wild bird.
[591] A saker (unlike a peregrine) should not get a full feed of
heron’s flesh, nor, generally speaking, of any water-bird’s flesh.
Some sakers after a full meal of duck or heron will cast their gorge,
sicken, and die. For some reason the flesh of the night-heron and of
the purple heron is not injurious—at least I have never lost a saker
by feeding one on the flesh of these birds. When entering a hawk to a
difficult quarry, it is always advisable to kill at least one “train”
under her, and to let her plume the feathers a _little_ and eat some
of the flesh: pigeons’ flesh may then be substituted. _Vide_ page 188,
note 789.
[592] Indian falconers also do this.
[593] “Nares,” a hawk’s nostrils.
[594] An exaggeration: an ell is 40 inches.
[595] _Sar zadan_, “to stoop”; in some districts _lagad zadan_, _lit._
“to kick.” It is very seldom that an experienced hawk will bind to
a wild heron at the first stoop. Herons in the air try to use their
beaks, and hawks prefer to knock about a heron first, by striking it
on the point of the shoulder, and then to seize an opportunity for
closing. Once, after binding to a heron in the air, as both birds were
falling, the heron seized a hawk of the translator’s by the wing and
made it scream.
[596] _Bālābān-i ustād_, “make-hawk,” _i.e._, an old experienced hawk
to lead and “make” the youngster.
[597] _Ishtihā dādan_, _lit._ “to give an appetite to”; by this
expression the author always means washed meat.
[598] _Bāl-ash rā bar ham mī-zanad_, “to beat the wings.”
[599] _Bāl-ash rā dar havā nigāh mī-dārad_, “to sail.”
[600] The author must mean the third day, as he has said above that
the hawk is to be given washed meat on the day following. _Vide_ note
597, page 138.
[601] _Gurisna-ash bi-kun_, _lit._ “make her hungry.”
[602] _Agar bi-gūsht-i k͟hud-ash ast._
[603] The Seventh Heaven, which is Abraham’s, is the highest: it is
under the Throne of God.
[604] _Bālābān-i buzyūrī_ = _chūz_ of India.
[605] _T̤ūlakī_, “moulted”: _t̤ūlak_, _subs._, “moult.”