REMEDIES FOR SLOW MOULTING
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]
FOOTNOTES:
[644] “Now I shall tell yow verray true medecynes for to mewe an hawke
hastyly that ye shall beleue for trowthe and ye Will assay them.
Ther be in Woddys or in hedgis Wormys calde edders that ben Redde of
nature. and he is calde vepa. and also ther be snakys of the same
kynde. and they be verri bitter. Take ii or iii of them and smyte of
their hedes and thendys of theyr taylis. Then take a new erthen pot:
that Was neuer used. and cut hem ito small gobettys * * *.”—_Boke of
St. Albans._
[645] _Hudhud_, the “Bird of Solomon” is the hoopoe, and not the
lapwing as supposed by some translators of the Qurān.
[646] _G͟hadūd_ or _qadūd_; found in the neck of animals.
[647] According to the old-fashioned theory of medicine, derived from
the Greeks, hornets are “hot.” In India wasp-grubs are cooked in
butter with spices, and the butter is then spread on the meat.
[648] _i.e._, grind by rubbing on a stone as Indians do curry spices.
[649] During the Indian hot weather, a fat hawk will sometimes start
moulting, if merely reduced in condition.