LICE[715]
The symptoms of lice are these: the feathers on the back of the
neck stand erect, and the hawk is ever scratching her head with
her foot and picking at her back and breast, with her beak: she is
never at rest. _Treatment_: get some quick-silver and “kill”[716] it
with vinegar; then apply it to a thread and cast the thread on the
neck of the hawk, and the lice will be destroyed.[717] _Item_: take
tobacco-water and mix therein a little salt, and apply the mixture to
the back of the neck and to the loins, and she shall be free. _Item_:
there is in Mazenderan a grass called _kankarvāsh_: pound some of this
very fine and mix therein a little wine, and apply to the back of
the neck and under the wings, and to every place where you know the
lice collect and hold their councils. Apply this and the lice will
instantly fall off. _Item_: place your hawk in the sun, and as soon
as she is warmed, the lice will collect on the large broad feathers,
three on each side, called by the Kurds _yār māliq_.[718] You can
then remove the lice with scissors. _Item_: take Armenian bole,[719]
country tobacco-leaf and good cigarette tobacco;[720] grind and mix.
By means of a reed, blow this powder on to and into the feathers. Then
place the hawk in the sun for a little, and the lice will disappear.
_Item_: take some carded cotton-wool and twist it into a roll as thick
as your finger, and at night cast it on your hawk’s neck and put her
in a warm place. All the lice will collect on the wool. In the morning
snip off the wool hastily and cast it away.
FOOTNOTES:
[715] _Shipish_ or _shupush_.
[716] _Bi-kush_, a term of alchemy.
[717] Quick-silver is a well-known Indian remedy for lice. Women mix
oil with the quick-silver. Indian falconers mix saliva with a little
quick-silver in the palm of the hand, and then dab it on at night
on the back of the hawk’s neck, etc., and under the wings. In the
morning not a trace of the vermin will be found. Newly-trained sakers
are invariably troubled with lice, but if so treated after they are
“manned” (and will preen freely), they generally continue free—unless
infected by another hawk. Peregrines in health, that bathe regularly,
are rarely if ever troubled with lice.
[718] _Vide_ note 474, page 112.
[719] _Gil-i Armanī_, “Armenian bole”; once celebrated as a European
medicine; said to be identical with the _gerū_ of the Hindus.
[720] _Tambākū_, “tobacco-leaf”; used for smoking in the water pipe:
_tutun_ is good cigarette tobacco, from Syria.