CHAPTER XLREMEDIES FOR SLOW MOULTING

Moultinghawks 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 isspecially 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]G͟hadūdorqadūd; 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.

[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]G͟hadūdorqadūd; 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.

Back to Index Next