CURE FOR THE VICE OF “SOARING”
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.”
You ask advice, then my prescription try,
That she forget this soaring in the sky.
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]
When once in Noah’s flood her passions cool,
She ne’er again will play the giddy fool.
FOOTNOTES:
[782] _Dawr-chī_, “a soarer,” _i.e._, a hawk given to the vice of
soaring. _Dawr kardan_, “to soar; also to ring up.”
[783] _Jarka_: apparently the “coverts,” but this is not the word used
elsewhere by the author for “coverts.”
[784] “... When he is at the height of his familiarity, cut out of
either wing three of his best flying feathers, and put to his heeles a
knocking paire of bels, and so traine him when his want of power will
hinder his desire to trauaile further, then you may with ease follow
him.”—Bert’s _Treatise of Hawkes and Hawking_ (page 77, Harting’s
reprint).
[785] Such a course would be fatal with a peregrine, for if a
peregrine is trained and flown in low condition she will certainly
take to soaring when brought into high or proper condition. Sakers,
however, are not inclined to soar.
[786] _Dawr kardan va parsa zadan._ A dervish or professional
story-teller sends round the hat at the most exciting point of his
tale and this is called _parsa zadan_; hence any going round.
[787] _Shikras_ are slow, and in India are always held in the hand
and thrown like a ball. The hawk is placed on the palm of the right
hand and collected, its legs and tail projecting between the thumb and
fore-finger. A careful falconer uses a small pad, as, from constant
grasping, the feathers become soiled and ragged.
[788] _Buland shudan_, “to rise.”
[789] Trained sakers will chase duck; but do they kill them in a wild
state? A saker if gorged on the flesh of a water-fowl will often
vomit. A fine haggard saker of the translator’s got violently sick
from eating the flesh of the common heron; its stomach was so upset
by the flesh that it could digest no other meat, and died. A small
quantity, however, of heron’s flesh may do no harm. This objection
does not apply so much to the flesh of the purple heron and of the
night-heron. _Vide_ note 591, p. 137.
[790] “But if you will have me grant that which I cannot yeelde unto,
that hauing flowne a Partridge to a house, notwithstanding all these
kinde courses taken with her, thee hath caught a Hen, then let some
one in the company, that can tell how to doe it, make haste unto her,
taking up both Hawke and Hen, and runne to a pond or pit of water,
(there is no dwelling house inhabited, and where hens are, but you
shall finde some water) and thereinto ouer-head and taile wash them
both together three or foure times.... It is not possible there should
be a hawke so ill but by this means she will be recouered.”—Bert’s
_Treatise of Hawkes and Hawking_ (pages 54-55, Harting’s reprint). An
Indian device to disgust a hawk with a particular quarry is to rub
asafœtida on it. This is said to be effectual. It is, however, not
always an easy matter to break a hawk of a quarry at which she flies
with zest. The translator once had a young passage-saker trained
to and flown only a few times at kite. He took the quarry from her
without rewarding her, a dog frightened her, an old woman threw a
blanket over her; in fact she suffered every ill a kite-hawk can
suffer after taking the quarry, but she was not broken of the quarry.