A HAWK NOT TO BE FED WHEN “BLOWN”
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.
Since the revolving skies, the changing moons,
The daily sunshine, all are Nature’s boons,
Show her perfections, and her charms display,
Gaze carefully, my son, and learn her way.
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?
FOOTNOTES:
[793] _i.e._, _Muḥammad_.
[794] Two or three minutes’ rest is really sufficient.
[795] “‘Plume,’ _v._, to pluck the feathers off the quarry.”—_Harting._
[796] There is a peculiar fascination about Eastern devices for
bird-catching; the methods are so quaint and so successful, and the
“quarry” is so varied.
[797] Eagles are slow in flight, but make up for their slowness by
dropping suddenly from a height.
[798] _Kabāb_, “meat cut in little bits and roasted on a skewer,” is
by a weird metaphor applied to a heart torn by grief, or love.
[799] It _is_ possible to catch eagles in an ordinary _du-gaza_, for
I have done so. A “sparrow-hawk _du-gaza_,” however, is sometimes
much smaller than an ordinary _du-gaza_. I have caught hobbies in
a _du-gaza_ about two spans high and about four long, suspended on
straws or thorns.
[800] Presumably a sparrow was the bait. For a kestril, however, a
mole-cricket is a surer bait.
[801] _Nasaq_ is any mutilating (or corporal) punishment, such as
cutting off the nose and ears, etc., etc.