CHAPTER XLVIIION PALPITATION[682]

Thisdisease is of three kinds. One arises from smoke and dust and dirt. The symptoms of all three are the same: if the hawk make the slightest exertion, she draws her breath with difficulty, and her body is agitated from the crop to the far end of the “keel bone.”[683]When she breathes, her tail and the feathers under the tail[684]heave, and the wings are carried loose and drooping.

Treatment: put the hawk in a dark room and keep her quiet, and fatten her up as much as possible. Give her three doses of castor oil,[685]on three alternate days, before feeding her. Keep water in front of her, that she may bathe and drink. Feed her daily on larks, with the bones and feathers, and on young pigeons. (On noaccount feed her on pigeons reared on millet, for millet is poison to hawks). Fatten her up till the disease leaves her.

One variety of palpitation arises from moisture of temperament: the hawk pants with the slightest exertion and there is a watery discharge from the mouth, eyes, and nostrils, and she is continually wiping her eyes on her shoulders to clean them; probably she is costive[686]as well. Observe her when she mutes; if she mutes in small quantities at a time, the soft feathers in the region of the vent getting soiled with the mutes, it is a sign that her disease is complicated by costiveness.Treatment: make her as fat as you can, feeding her on good meats. Once, or twice, in the manner previously described, give her oil and manna and the whitened droppings of a dog. On alternate days, mix with her food either butter, or almond oil. If she still mute in patches, then:—Treatment: take oil of peach-kernels, with oil of filberts, and oil of blanched almonds, and mix a quantity equal to asunjad;[687]then dip the cotton-wool end of the clyster-stick[688]in these three oils, and by its means give her an enema twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. Feed her, too, on young pigeons, and on larks, and on the flesh of the wild boar and of eagles, and, if it please God, she will recover.Item: get some sheep’s wool, and removing all burrs, etc., etc. from it, tease it out like carded cotton. Round about the middle or “waist” of this wool, tie a piece of silk of two or three strands in thickness, and about two spans in length. Wash the wool in warm water and bind a little meat to one end of it. Holding the end of the silk, induce the hawk to swallow the wool thus garnished with the meat. As soon as she has swallowed it, show her other meat to excite her cupidity and induce her to “put over” the wool now in her crop. As soon as you have ascertained by touch,[689]that the wool has reached thelower stomach, pull the silk and withdraw it, and it will bring up with it any impurity there may be in the stomach.

If the hawk be a goshawk, or indeed any short-winged hawk, substitute cotton-wool for the sheep’s wool.

If the cotton-wool, or the sheep’s wool, be washed in warm water, or in the milk of a young girl or of a donkey, and then given to the hawk soaked with the milk, so much the better.

The third form of palpitation is due to a blow, and those skilled in Avian Pathology have named this, “Contusional and Incurable Palpitation.” This disease is probably due to the ill-temper of your falconer. Perhaps the weather has been cold and there has been snow[690]about: the hawk, suffering from the cold, has bated[691]incessantly till the ill-tempered falconer has, in his irritation, buffeted her and boxed her, and then “mailed” her in the skirt of his filthy coat. The result is that some ribs, or small bones, have got broken or injured. Or it may be that the hawk was low in condition and maddened by hunger, and in pursuit of her quarry dashed herself against a stone, or against a branch, and so broke a rib.Remedy: send for the falconer and show him the hawk; let him have thirty or forty cuffs over the head;[692]kick him out of your service and see that he does not get a place elsewhere, and set about procuring a new hawk for yourself. For “Contusional Palpitation” there is no treatment but this.

FOOTNOTES:[682]K͟hafaqān, properly “palpitation of the heart.” The disease described under this name appears to be identical with the “Teyne” of theBoke of St. Albansand with the “Pantas” of other writers. Markham describes the latter as “A dangerous disease in hawks whereof few escape that are afflicted therewith; it proceeds from the lungs being as it were baked by excessive heat, that the hawk cannot draw her breath and when drawn cannot emit it again; and you may judge of the beginning of this evil by the hawk’s labouring much in the pannel, moving her train often up and down at each motion of her pannel, and many times she cannot mute nor slice off; if she does, she drops it fast by her. The same distemper is also perceived by the hawk’s frequent opening her clap and beak.”[683]ʿAz̤m-i zawraqī, “the sternum.”[684]Dum-līza: I do not know whether this is the “Pope’s nose,” or the feathers under the tail, the “brayles or brayle federis” of theBoke of St. Albans.[685]Rūg͟han-i karchakis in m.c. “castor oil;”videnote729, page 171.[686]Marẓ-i k͟huskī, “dryness,”i.e, “costiveness.”[687]Sunjadorsinjid, a sort of red wild plum, oblong in shape like theʿunnabor jujube.[688]ShāforShāfais a stick with cotton-wool at the end; this is dipped in oil and used as an enema for children.[689]By feeling the stomach and bowel with the fore-finger it is easy to tell whether the stomach is full or empty. Indian falconers, who have a hawk on the fist for many hours every day, can frequently tell by touch whether the hawk has “cast” or not. The “casting” apparently forms only a short time before being ejected and can be distinctly felt by an educated finger.[690]Būrān, “a snow-storm,” a word not in the dictionaries.[691]Parīdan, “to fly,i.e., to bate.”[692]The usual punishment would, in Persia, be the bastinado. The author probably wrote in Baghdad where the bastinado is not used.

[682]K͟hafaqān, properly “palpitation of the heart.” The disease described under this name appears to be identical with the “Teyne” of theBoke of St. Albansand with the “Pantas” of other writers. Markham describes the latter as “A dangerous disease in hawks whereof few escape that are afflicted therewith; it proceeds from the lungs being as it were baked by excessive heat, that the hawk cannot draw her breath and when drawn cannot emit it again; and you may judge of the beginning of this evil by the hawk’s labouring much in the pannel, moving her train often up and down at each motion of her pannel, and many times she cannot mute nor slice off; if she does, she drops it fast by her. The same distemper is also perceived by the hawk’s frequent opening her clap and beak.”

[683]ʿAz̤m-i zawraqī, “the sternum.”

[684]Dum-līza: I do not know whether this is the “Pope’s nose,” or the feathers under the tail, the “brayles or brayle federis” of theBoke of St. Albans.

[685]Rūg͟han-i karchakis in m.c. “castor oil;”videnote729, page 171.

[686]Marẓ-i k͟huskī, “dryness,”i.e, “costiveness.”

[687]Sunjadorsinjid, a sort of red wild plum, oblong in shape like theʿunnabor jujube.

[688]ShāforShāfais a stick with cotton-wool at the end; this is dipped in oil and used as an enema for children.

[689]By feeling the stomach and bowel with the fore-finger it is easy to tell whether the stomach is full or empty. Indian falconers, who have a hawk on the fist for many hours every day, can frequently tell by touch whether the hawk has “cast” or not. The “casting” apparently forms only a short time before being ejected and can be distinctly felt by an educated finger.

[690]Būrān, “a snow-storm,” a word not in the dictionaries.

[691]Parīdan, “to fly,i.e., to bate.”

[692]The usual punishment would, in Persia, be the bastinado. The author probably wrote in Baghdad where the bastinado is not used.

Back to Index Next