To train the bālābān to heron, she must first be trained, as already described, to a lure[581] made of the wings of a common crane.
When she knows the lure well, get a live chicken and tie it by the leg to the lure, with a string about twenty inches long. Lure the hawk from a long distance, casting into the air, two or three times, the lure garnished with the chicken, so that the hawk may come with force and eagerness and seize the chicken. Cut the chicken’s throat and feed up the hawk. Let her kill two or three fowls in this manner, so that she may come with eagerness to the lure.
Now go out into the open country and find a night-heron,[582] get close to it and cast off your hawk at it. * * *.[583]
If you find a night-heron on the edge of a small stream, cast off your hawk, and should she take it, feed her up.[584] If, however, she will not fly it, you must take one with a shahin or with a goshawk and in the morning give it to her alive as a flying train: if she will not take it, bind a little meat on its back. Fly her at this same “train” again in the evening. When she will readily take the “train,” you must fly her at one or two wild night-herons and at one or two purple herons. * * *.[585]
Now procure a bagged common heron[586] and on its broad yār māliq[587] feathers tie a piece of meat very firmly so that there is no possible chance of your hawk being able to disengage it and go off with it. Hold the heron by one wing, and get your assistant to stand some distance off with the hawk. When the bālābān binds to the meat, let her pull and eat a little: then remove her. You must now seel the heron’s eyes so that it may not suddenly ring up[588]—better still, bind two or three of its flight-feathers together so that it may run on the ground and extend its wings.[589] As soon as the hawk takes the train feed her up.
On the morrow, again tie meat on to the heron’s back, but unbind the flight-feathers so that it may fly well. Release the heron, and when it has flown ten or twelve paces unhood and cast off your hawk. As soon as she takes it, give her only a little meat and fly her again in the evening in the same way. Do this for several days, gradually reducing the quantity of meat on the heron’s back.[590] As soon as your hawk flies the heron in style, seizing it by the neck without regarding the meat, cut the heron’s throat and feed her up.[591] Next day procure a fresh heron but tie no meat on its back. Let it fly, and when it has flown a good distance unhood and cast off your hawk. When she takes the heron, feed her up. Withdraw the dead heron from her grasp and cast it to a distance of ten or twelve yards that she may know that that is her dead quarry;[592] then let her go and settle on it and take two or three beakfuls. Again withdraw and cast the dead heron to a little distance, but do not let the hawk go: let her “bate” towards it once or twice and then hood her. Wash off any blood spots and clean the “nares”.[593]
Now procure another heron, one strong of flight, that will ring up. Get an assistant to mount some high place—a place about a hundred ell high[594]—and release the heron. You must be mounted, and, hawk on fist, take stand below this spot. Remove the hood of the hawk and let her discover the heron above her. She will have to exert herself to get above it, and if, after getting above it, she makes two or three stoops at it[595] before binding, what better? Feed her up.
Next day, go and find a wild heron in an easy and suitable spot, but have with you as a “make-hawk”[596] a bālābān that is fully trained to this flight. First cast off your young hawk. She will, of course, make four or five stoops at the heron, but should the heron commence to “ring” and the hawk show signs of slackening, then at once cast off the “make-hawk,” so that the jealousy of the young hawk may be excited and they may together take the quarry. Feed up the young hawk well, so that you may give her washed meat[597] the day following.
As long as your hawk, while ringing up with the heron, keeps beating[598] her wings quickly, it is a sign that she is trying to get above it; but the moment she ceases to beat, and begins to sail,[599] she has given up. In this case, at once call her down to the lure of crane’s wings, and as soon as she comes reward her by killing, under the lure, either a chicken or a pigeon, feeding her up well; for in the opinion of falconers this dropping from a height to the lure is better than taking ten herons: she is now your property; up till now she has been merely a loan.
Next day[600] go and find a heron in an easy place, and first cast off your young hawk at it. As soon as she has made one or two stoops, cast off the “make-hawk” (before the heron commences to ring) so that they may stoop at it alternately and the two may take it together.
On the following day feed her lightly;[601] and on the day following that, again fly her at a heron. If she is in her proper condition[602] and not too fat, and is also hungry, it is impossible for her to fail, even if the heron ring up into the Seventh Heaven[603]—unless, of course, an eagle interferes or the heron drops into a broad stream that cannot be crossed. Should either of these mishaps occur, lure her without delay, and feed her well. In the latter case, you may consider she has taken this heron: it is as though she had done so. On the morrow, please God, she will not fail.
If your hawk has had a hard flight after a heron, she should be fed up on it, and not flown a second time that day. If, however, she kills very quickly and without exertion, there is no harm in giving her a second flight.
If you want your saker to fly heron well, you should keep her for this flight alone and not fly her at anything else.
A young passage saker in the first or immature plumage,[604] is far better for this flight than the “intermewed” hawk,[605] for, after the moult, a hawk becomes heavy, and cannot ring up after a heron. For one or two moults a hawk will indeed kill heron in a sort of fashion,[606] but after three or four moults she is useless for this flight;[607] you must procure a young bālābān[608] for it.
[580] Ḥuqār, corrup. of the Arabic ʿuqār, which is possibly also the name of the white egret. In some parts of Persia and in the Kapurthala State in the Panjab, the common heron is called būtīmār. Sakers are not as easily entered to heron as they are to hubara or to hare.
[581] T̤alba, P., “a lure”: in India dalba, corrup. of t̤alba. In Baṣrah and Baghdad the lure is called baftara, but in Kwet and Bahrain Island milwā,iḥ, root unknown.
[582] Vāq, “night-heron”; in some parts of the Panjab wāqwāq; in the Kapurthala State awānk.
[583] A short description by the Author, of the night-heron, being unnecessary, is here omitted.
[584] Sakers as a rule do not fly this quarry unless entered by trains. The flesh of the night-heron is not injurious to sakers, vide page 137, note 591.
[585] Jarda, evidently the purple heron. A few lines describing this species are omitted. The purple heron on the wing looks nearly as large as the common heron. It is, however, a feeble quarry; it is very slow in flight and is unable to shift from a stoop. The flesh is not as coarse or fishy as that of the common heron.
[586] A saker that kills purple heron will kill common heron. In any case a saker that has killed night-heron will take a train of the common heron without the back being garnished with meat.
[588] It is very rarely indeed that a bagged heron will attempt to ring up. If once taken by a hawk, it will generally, when the hawk gets close to it, drop to the ground.
[589] It is always advisable to give “trains” flying, especially to sakers. Sakers do not, however, require flying trains of hubara.
[590] It is not necessary to tie meat on the heron’s back even for a saker, and most certainly not necessary when the hawk has already been flown at purple herons or night-herons. However, sakers are not spoilt by being given many trains as are peregrines: they do not easily become what Indians call bā,ūlī-band or “train-bound.” No matter how or where a train is given, hawks at once recognize that it is not an ordinary wild bird.
[591] A saker (unlike a peregrine) should not get a full feed of heron’s flesh, nor, generally speaking, of any water-bird’s flesh. Some sakers after a full meal of duck or heron will cast their gorge, sicken, and die. For some reason the flesh of the night-heron and of the purple heron is not injurious—at least I have never lost a saker by feeding one on the flesh of these birds. When entering a hawk to a difficult quarry, it is always advisable to kill at least one “train” under her, and to let her plume the feathers a little and eat some of the flesh: pigeons’ flesh may then be substituted. Vide page 188, note 789.
[592] Indian falconers also do this.
[593] “Nares,” a hawk’s nostrils.
[594] An exaggeration: an ell is 40 inches.
[595] Sar zadan, “to stoop”; in some districts lagad zadan, lit. “to kick.” It is very seldom that an experienced hawk will bind to a wild heron at the first stoop. Herons in the air try to use their beaks, and hawks prefer to knock about a heron first, by striking it on the point of the shoulder, and then to seize an opportunity for closing. Once, after binding to a heron in the air, as both birds were falling, the heron seized a hawk of the translator’s by the wing and made it scream.
[596] Bālābān-i ustād, “make-hawk,” i.e., an old experienced hawk to lead and “make” the youngster.
[597] Ishtihā dādan, lit. “to give an appetite to”; by this expression the author always means washed meat.
[598] Bāl-ash rā bar ham mī-zanad, “to beat the wings.”
[599] Bāl-ash rā dar havā nigāh mī-dārad, “to sail.”
[600] The author must mean the third day, as he has said above that the hawk is to be given washed meat on the day following. Vide note 597, page 138.
[601] Gurisna-ash bi-kun, lit. “make her hungry.”
[602] Agar bi-gūsht-i k͟hud-ash ast.
[603] The Seventh Heaven, which is Abraham’s, is the highest: it is under the Throne of God.
[604] Bālābān-i buzyūrī = chūz of India.
[605] T̤ūlakī, “moulted”: t̤ūlak, subs., “moult.”